Since the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) opened its office in Ekiti State, debates have flourished on its impact. Why the sociology of the phenomenon has been highlighted, we need to place the narrative in historic context.
Yahoo Yahoo, the euphemism for internet fraud, did not just emerge from the moon. Certain conditions, particular contradictions gave rise to it. Yahoo Yahoo did not create itself, it is a product of the quality of leadership.
When children are born, they do not determine their consciousness. Human behavior is a reflection of material relations in the environment which determines human consciousness. Yahoo yahoo is not the ‘cause’, it is rather the effect, the consequence of a phenomenon. Yet, while it is easy to deride yahoo yahoo, we should be conscious of its origin, its form and content and most importantly, the bigger picture: Nigeria is a corrupt country ran by inept leaders, a country where graft and institutionalised crime are legendary.
In Nigeria, a sitting President raised over N6 billion to build a private library. After eight years in power, he became proud owner of a private University worth trillions, but the road to his ancestral village remain obsolete and locals have no good water to drink.
While politicians savagely loot public resources in a crude, organised manner, yahoo yahoo is the mini version. While yahoo yahoo are largely students and fresh graduates desperate to exploit the system, organised corporate criminals are members of the economic and political class who cover their crime under political legitimacy. They occupy important places in the economic and political spectrum. Their positions confer on them official licenses to rob the people day and night.
While Yahoo Yahoo dress like street hippies, sagged trousers, corporate criminals are in suit and tie; Agbada and Babanriga with the privilege of state institutions at their beckon. While focusing on yahoo yahoo, we should not create a diversion from one of the most critical afflictions of Nigeria, which is organised corporate crime of Nigerian economic and political elite, which, in itself, is the grandmaster of all plaques.
From morality to rot
In years past, Nigerians were a decent, honest people. Many Nigerians still are, but the tiny rogue cartels overwhelm the image of the country. We must understand that there is a synergy between yahoo yahoo and organized, corporate crime. While the first targets local, largely foreign individuals or firms, creating individual pain, the later rips open the abdomen of the country, akin to committing genocide. The goal and motivation are the same, but the strategy and tactics differ. There are glaring examples of organised corporate crimes, which is the advanced version of Yahoo Yahoo.
Emmanuel Nwude between 1995 and 1998, defrauded a Brazilian bank to the tune of $242m by selling fake airport in Abuja. He was able to convince Nelson Sagaguchi of Bronco Noroeste Bank in Sao Paulo. This single act crippled the bank. He was a former Director of Union Bank of Nigeria.
Former Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele was linked to 753 housing units, far more than the entire estates at Ahmadu Bello University, Obafemi Awolowo University and University of Lagos combined.
Former Minister of Justice, Abubakar Mallami faces EFCC trial over N8.7b money laundering and asset accumulation.
Take bullying DISCOs. They ask people to pay for services not provided. Nigerians pay for darkness. DISCOs impose monthly bills thrice the entire monthly salary of many end users. Their directors are swimming in ill gotten wealth while their horrific services ruin and uproot the root of Nigeria’s industrialisation.
Between 2013 and 2021, the Corporate Affairs Commission said it had no records of 24 companies who nevertheless collected billions of naira in oil subsidy payoff.
The House Committee investigating the corporate yahoo yahoo was Mustapha Aliyu. At present, we are dealing with a fake DG who nevertheless secured office at the Federal Secretariat and received billions of funds from the Federal Government.
Senators take some N22 billion every year as Constituency Allowance, that are not subject to public scrutiny. How will such a society not breed violence and counter criminal activities and even terrorism? The list is endless.
Many Nigerian notable rogues are occupying important offices as we speak and even dictate the future of the country.
Yahoo Yahoo and organised corporate crime have a common goal: to reap where they did not sow, to create pain, anguish and sorrow for people who had largely made their money from the sweat of their brow.
The crime architecture of the two conducts apply different methods: Yahoo Yahoo rely on the internet to fleece known and unknown victims through IT, employing sex tricks, phantom investments, identity fraud and credit card scam. The practitioners have graduated to rituals, including but not limited to human sacrifices.
Organised corporate crime on the other hand is more advanced and more perilous. It employs collective raid of a whole country through outright stealing of public cash, inflation of contracts or diversion of public funds into private pockets. The impact on the society is far more dangerous. Both fuel a culture of greed, avarice, corruption and total destruction of the public image and the moral fabric of the country.
We must be honest enough to admit that organised corporate corruption preceded Yahoo Yahoo which in reality is the creative poison invented by the young graduates, students who for decades, watch in disbelief the glorification of corporate crime, the adoration of corruption and moral decadence by the state and its social and cultural institutions. Both crimes are not in isolation. They work in collaboration with security agencies, banks and financial institutions in Nigeria.
Worst still, in Nigeria, corruption has been institutionalised like the unquestionable security votes, constituency projects allocated to members of the National Assembly, procurement of large convoys of cars for topmost state officials, magnificent estates and multi billion naira bullet proof cars for managers of the commonwealth in the midst of abject poverty of their own people.
In decent countries, corruption draws generational shame. In Nigeria, corrupt people seize honour and prestige.
In Singapore, The Cheang Wan, the then Minister for National Development committed suicide when Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau began to probe him. He took an overdose of Amytal on December 14, 1986. He died, underscoring Singapore’s strict zero tolerance for corruption.
Crime and Poverty
Poverty is not necessarily the cause of crime, else, the poorest nations in the world would be the most crime prone.
The poorest people are not necessarily the most corrupt. Our parents were poor but contended. The cause of crime is found in the unequal distribution of wealth, lack of rule of law, lack of sanctions for bad conduct, reward for crime, no reward for good behavior and the seizure of a country’s leadership by rogue cells, people without conscience, those who place primitive accumulation of wealth above humanity. When democratic institutions are in the hands of guymen, both organised corporate crime and yahooyahoo will mushroom.
The changing sociology of our society
Now, in discussing these issues, we must ask ourselves, how did corporate crime and Yahoo Yahoo begin? Organised corruption, even though has been with Nigeria before independence assumed geometric proportion during the military era, especially in the 1980s. Two important events, though unnoticed, took place in the mid-1980s.
