If the Supreme Court is going to look to foreign laws, start here.

Spam, the scourge of the internet, even in Nigeria. It seems that President Olusegun Obasanjo's inbox must be full, and he is none too happy about it.

Nigeria, home to some of the world's most notorious cyber crimes, has proposed a law making spamming a criminal offence for which senders of unsolicited emails could be jailed for at least three years.

Under the bill, which has to be approved by the National Assembly to become law, convicted spammers face jail terms of three to five years and could also be made to hand the proceeds of crime to the government.

"Any person spamming electronic messages to recipients with whom he has no previous relationship commits an offence," said a section of the draft law obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.