Video clips of some alleged online scammers, popularly known as Yahoo-Yahoo boys who ran amok on the streets of Enugu,  went viral on the social media a few days ago. A young woman was seen in the video running after one of them who had yanked off his clothes, trying to cover him with a wrapper.
This has become a regular occurrence, young boys suddenly losing it mentally and doing all kinds of unthinkable things in the open. Recall the story of a young man in his early 20s said to be a ‘yahoo-yahoo’ boy, who ran mad and stabbed himself to death with a broken bottle in Ugheli, Delta State, some years back.
It is really getting out of hand. Young girls are getting killed for ritual purposes, young men are going crazy and dying for ritual killing. Who will save Nigerian youth?
Our youth, in a bid to get rich quick, are doing all manner of unimaginable things including taking lives and harvesting the body parts of their victims for rituals in support of their Internet fraud “business”. From Yahoo boys where they use their internet dexterity to commit series of cybercrimes, they graduated to Yahoo plus, which requires the use of charm for protection and to hypnotise unsuspecting victims, to the latest – Yahoo plus-plus which involves the harvesting of human parts for the preparation of magic concoctions to boost their cybercrime success. A writer described Yahoo plus-plus this way, it “involves the use of human parts and may need kidnapping other human beings for rituals, which is not necessary in ‘Yahoo Plus’. In Yahoo Plus Plus, the use of things such as victims’ finger nails, rings, carrying of corpses, making incision on their body, sleeping in the cemetery, chanting of incantation, using their fingers for rituals, and having sex with ghosts are common.”
Unfortunately, female parts seem to be the favourite item for the ritual. Recall the killing of a 300-level student of the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Jennifer Anthony, by a suspected ritualist in a hotel in Jos, the Plateau State capital. Spokesman of the Plateau State Police Command, Ubah Gabriel Ogaba, said Miss Anthony, who was declared missing on December 30, 2021 was later found dead in a hotel in Jos with eyes gouged out of their sockets.
A few weeks back, another girl, Rofiat, was killed by her boyfriend and two of his friends at Oke Aregba, Abeokuta, Ogun State. The girl was said to have been strangled, her head cut off and burnt in a local pot by Soliu, her boyfriend, and two others for money ritual. However, luck ran out on them when a local community guard sighted their activities and alerted the police, which led to their arrest.
While some of these girls fall prey because of their longings for free food, free drinks and other material considerations, others like late Elozino Ogege, a 300-level Mass Communication student of the Delta State University was no such. Her kidnapping and killing was masterminded by a security guard in the university, who promised to help her with information regarding available rooms for rent within the school’s staff quarter. Some of them were victims of love. The same men they loved and who claimed to love them in return, were the ones who killed and mutilated them just to be rich, buy the latest cars, rent expensive houses, belong to the group of big boys and have other good things that money can buy.
But how did we get to this level where material things are now more valuable than human lives?  How is it that our young men have mortgaged their consciences and now see nothing wrong in spilling blood?  The most worrisome thing is that some parents, being fully aware of their sons’ criminal acts, support them. I remember someone I know telling people who came to report her son’s suspicious acts in school, to leave him alone that it is through the pressing of phones and computers that her son pays his school fees and caters for his other needs.  To her, it was a mere punching of the devices’ keyboard, as if they were minting machines. Stories are told of some parents who personally take their sons to where they will be taught the “business”.  What about women who encourage their husbands to engage in criminal acts?
At a gathering recently, a question was asked whether there should be harsher penalty for Internet fraud as against a fine of up to N10 million or a term of imprisonment of five years as provided in Nigeria’s Cybercrime Act 2015 and surprisingly, some of the people there including mothers, fathers and young people objected.  They said the fine should rather be reduced. A particular young man said that only ‘mugus’ fall victims of Internet fraud, so it should not have been made a crime in the first place.
There are others who claim that Internet crime is thriving in the country because of various reasons – poor leadership both at national and state levels, high level of unemployment, poor parenting, social media and peer group influence and many more.
Definitely, there is the need for government at all levels to be more responsive to the needs of the people, use the proceeds from the nation’s abundant natural resources to develop the country,  provide conducive environment for businesses to thrive so that more jobs will be provided for the teeming unemployed youth; our leaders, the celebrities, who many young ones look up to as their role models should cut down on the expensive lifestyle; efforts should be made towards narrowing the wide gap between the rich and the poor in our society. Employment, particularly in government establishments, should be on merit rather than based on who one knows or how much he has to pay for the job so that the deserving people will get the jobs.
But, should these problems be enough reason for our young men to resort to crime, ritual as a means of livelihood? Of course not!  It is certain that despite the multitudinous challenges facing the country, many people are still making it legitimately here. By dint of sheer hard work, countless youths in the country have moved from grass to grace. So, our youth should jettison the prevailing get-rich-quick syndrome and think of positive, legitimate ways of using their talent and youthful energy to better themselves and the nation. As a popular saying goes, “success is not easy and is certainly not for the lazy”. You are a school dropout, you refuse to learn a trade, you do not want to do any menial job and you want to drive the type of a senator’s car, how can that be?
Parents should also wake up to their responsibilities towards their children. To be a parent is far more than just giving birth to a child. In the words of Alain de Botton, “To be a parent is to be chief designer of a product more advanced than any technology and more interesting than the greatest work of art”. The duty of a mother or father is to direct the steps of their children, making sure that they do not go astray and when they derail, call them back.
The rate of youths’ enrolment into Yahoo boys and the likes should be of a great concern to all Nigerians as it is capable of destroying this generation and the ones after,  if not checked and the task of curtailing it is for everybody. The Police and other economic crime- fighting agencies of the government have done well but they can do better. There is the need to strengthen the sanctioning system. Offenders should be duly punished to serve as a deterrent for many.
Most importantly, unless we begin to de-emphasise materialism in our society and begin to frown at material acquisition through illegal means, we may not succeed in stopping the Yahoo business and that will mean a bleak future for the country.
Lastly, a poser for our young people – A list of the richest young men in the world was released recently. How many Yahoo-Yahoo boys were there?

By: Calista Ezeaku