They are young, very young. They have identifiable characteristics such as tinted or coloured dreads, ripped, sagged and loose pairs of jeans, open-necked and oversized shirts, golden chains, gucci wears, golden chains, and sometimes with pungent body odour, and every other extravagant and flamboyant lifestyle you can think of. These young men are the internet fraudsters otherwise known as Yahoo boys. They’re virtually everywhere in Nigeria.
On the other hand, we have this other category of Yahoo ‘boys’ who wear starched agbada. Sometimes, they dress in elegant, well-tailored suits. English is the medium through which they gush out lies. Some speak eloquently, while others speak vaguely unintelligently. This set of Yahoo boys are the political elite. They strut around and hurt the common men. We have them in our various States. A popular one is from Agassa, Kogi State.
Oftentimes, I giggle whenever people, especially those from Kogi State, curse and cuss at Yahoo boys who kill their girlfriends or ordinary people for money rituals through the instrumentality of deadly weapons like cutlass, hatchet or spirituality, forgetting that they have a notorious habitual Yahoo-man in agbada called Yahaya Bello! Of course, Yahoo boys kill, and so do hunger and non-payment of salaries! While Yahoo boys kill instantly, Bello’s misappropriation of public funds and non-payment of workers’ salaries kill Kogites slowly. And as Nigerians would say, ‘all die na die!’
When we talk about Yahoo-Yahoo, it has to do with scamming people. Gucci-wearing Yahoo boys scam; agbada Yahoo boys also scam. Bello is one of the agbada’s. He scams the old and the young. His government so far has been fraught with frightening fraud. And the trademark of all scammers are false, empty and unfulfilled promises. Those are what Bello does. Where are the primary schools in Kogi State today? What happened to the Idah-Agenebode bride he promised in 2019? What happened to Ankpa-Abejukolo road? What happened to workers’ salaries? What happened to Operation Light Kogi East? Please, how do you people define ‘scam’ again?
Unfortunately, many workers have died out of frustration. Some died during Bello’s endless screening. Some died because they couldn’t treat themselves of either debilitating or even preventable illnesses. Now, what is the difference between the Gucci-wearing Yahoo boys and the agbada-donning Yahoo boys like Bello? Don’t they kill in different ways?
Only their fashion sense and modus operandi differ, otherwise, technically, the end result of their ‘Yahooish’ attitude is similar.
ALSO READ: When Muri Stopped Bello, By Sule Abubakar Lucky Mark https://summitpostnews.com/when-muri-stopped-bello/
As if the way he has been scamming and slamming wasn’t enough, Bello has come up with a bigger scam called Ododo again. Ododo, another lousy scammer! A cognitively disabled gubernatorial clown, who cannot construct a coherent grammatical sentence! Ododo whom Bello wants to impose on Kogites is a vicious incorrigible kleptomaniac whose track record as the auditor general for Local Government in Kogi State remains a sordid history. But can anything good come out of Nazareth? I mean what will come from the ‘Yahooish’ Yahaya Bello that won’t be another sophisticated scam?
The internet buzzes, the rabble raves, and I giggle. People cry over Yahoo boys’ inhumanity to their unsuspecting victims. In verses, they scream, curse and cuss at Yahoo boys. They decry their fraudulent act as inhumane and merciless, but they wash the feet of the real Yahoo man like Gov. Yahaya Bello and even greet him with a holy kiss! How would you gush out fulsome praises to Yahoo-politicians like Bello, but you utter and mutter curses on the gucci-wearing Yahoo boys? How would you glorify Bello’s’ white-collar thievery, but crucify the gucci-wearing Yahoo boys’ trickery and robbery? Do we now respect people for killing their victims differently? Oh, that’s selective morality! Is killing not killing? But I end this with Birago Diop’s rhetorical question in his poem ‘Vanity:’ ‘Who then will hear our voices without laughter’ if we continue this way?
Sule Abubakar Lucky Mark,
Writer and Sociologist.
Email: suleabubakarmark1111@gmail.com
29/10/2023.