We've all seen those Nigerian scams, where someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince has lots of money he needs to get rid of, and he'll give it to you, the random American who probably couldn't find Nigeria on a map. Those scams work because people fall for them, of course. But this time the target was the state of California, and it still fell for the scam. To the tune of $36 million in Medicaid fraud.

Nathan Ogbatue is a Nigerian Chieftain known as a "philanthropist" who builds roads and houses, helps medical clinics, and provides food for the needy. But he's also the CEO of California Home Health Agency (CHHA), funded by the state's taxpayers.

Here's more:

We sent Ogbatue a list of questions and assertions, including the reported Medicaid billing totals, before publication.

A lawyer from King & Spalding sent a long response. She argued that CHHA provides professionally ordered and medically necessary home health care via a “network of more than one hundred contracted registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, and home health aides.” She suggested that the pandemic drove demand for CHHA’s services and claimed that the company’s revenue increase in 2022 “coincides with a health plan contracting for additional home health nursing services.”

[Fraud expert Mark]Haskins wasn’t convinced by that explanation. He raised multiple questions, including about the company’s failure to file utilization reports and the identities of its service providers.

“If the CHHA claims over 100 clinicians on 1099s, submitting an accurate HCAI report would create a permanent, public audit trail showing an impossible ratio of visits to payroll, massive contract labor line items, or billing volume that contradicts their CDPH staffing ratios,” he said. “However, by skipping the filing, they keep their aggregate utilization numbers out of public oversight data sets.”

Between 2018 and 2021, CHHA made less than $2 million from Medicaid, but between 2022 and 2025, it made more than $34 million.

When City Journal reporters spoke to Ogbatue, he accused them of being racist for asking how CHHA makes its money. Ogbatue also directed City Journal to talk to his lawyer, Wilfred Aka. Aka, it turns out, was disbarred by the federal U.S. Tax Court and the Federal Board of Immigration Appeals. He was also suspended by the California State Bar in 2019 and 2020 and faced disciplinary charges last year.

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Ogbatue bought several expensive California properties and reportedly built a new palace in Abatete, Nigeria.

Pretty much.

And Ogbatue knows exactly how California officials think, which is why he played the "asking questions is racism" card.

Meanwhile, Democrats will tell us with a straight face that we don't tax Americans enough. We're $40 trillion in debt, but can somehow send $36 million to Nigerian scammers.

We desperately need accountability.