Man, don't you hate when you do a contract job for a foreign government, then they make you wait so long for payment that you totally forgot you did the darn job? Or that they owed you anything? Or even what the heck you did?

Yeah, I hate that, too. Apparently, it happened to me, though. This morning, I got not one, but TWO letters apologizing for the lengthy delay in payment for the contract work I'd performed.

That must have been some delay, because I just plumb forgot I even did any work with the Nigerian government. Darn. I need to start writing these things down, and I mean in a real copybook instead of on any little scraps of paper that are handy.

You know, they could have gotten away with not paying me at all, if they'd wanted to. I didn't even remember that they owed me anything, so I'd have been none the wiser. It just restores my faith in the human race to see that people are honest enough to pay when they could have kept their money to themselves. Don't you agree? In fact, to salute their altruistic ways, here's the letter they sent me:

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
WIRE TRANSFER DEPARTMENT
MARINA AVENUE-LAGOS
NIGERIA.

OUR REF: CBN/WTD/AU/11/02/08

ATTN: HONOURABLE CONTRACTOR / NEXT OF KIN CLAIMS.
RE: REMITTANCE OF YOUR CONTRACT SUM WITH THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.

With due respect sir, we sincerely apologize for the delay of the
transfer of your contract sum into your nominated bank account. Several
foreign contractors have gone through several problems receiving their
contract payments from our country.
I sincerely apologize for this problems.Henceforth,We have gone through
your files and documents and I must say they are highly satisfactory
and we have decided to transfer your funds into your account
immediately we hear from you.
To make things clear and to prevent fraudulent activities, we would
advice you to re-send your personal data
1. Names in full: --------------
2. Address: ------------------
3. Nationality: ----------------
4. Age: ----------------------
5. Occupation: ----------------
6. Phone/Fax: -----------------
7. Present Country: ------------
8. Banking details: --------------
9. Contract amount: ------------
And all other relevant documents that approve your claim of this
contract sum.Please we would advice that you contact us on
(draliu_usman@excite.com)so that we could talk this over.
As soon as we receive the aforementioned information, we would commence
with the transfer of your funds into your account immediately.
We are doing this to make sure we erase all terrible names our country
has over the past.
We hope to serve you better.
Regards,
DR ALIU USMAN
MANAGER,
WIRE TRANSFER DEPT.(CBN).