Wages of Cybercrimes: Police Seek Moral Rearmament

Concerned over the growing number of young Nigerians involved in cybercrimes, also known as Yahoo-Yahoo or its fetish extension – Yahoo Plus, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu, has analysed the situation and proffered solutions to the problem, which includes parental control, moral rearmament and government commitment to the war on cybercrime.

Adamu expressed his views in a lecture delivered on his behalf by the Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone XI, Mr Adeleye Oyebade. The lecture titled ‘Cybercrimes: Emerging Dangerous Codes and Cypher Among Students: Causes, Effects and Suggested Solutions’, was delivered at a National Workshop organized by the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), Federal Ministry of Education, Laje Road, Ondo City, on September 17, 2019.

Here’s a full text of the Lecture:

LECTURE DELIVERED BY AIG ADELEYE O. OYEBADE, mni, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE ON EXHIBITION OF AFFLUENCE AMONG STUDENTS (COMBINED WITH) “YAHOO”, “YAHOO PLUS” AND CYBER CRIMES: EMERGING DANGEROUS CODES AND CYPHER AMONG STUDENTS: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS AT A NATIONAL WORKSHOP ORGANISED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION (NIEPA) (FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION), LAJE ROAD, ONDO CITY, ONDO STATE ON 17TH SEPTEMBER, 2019

Youths’ involvement in heinous crimes such as cybercrimes, cultism, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, sexual abuses and sundry vices is commonplace and indeed worrisome. Our institutions’ campuses have become havens or dens, albeit nests where students perpetrate all manners of criminal activities.

Cybercrimes commonly committed by students include hacking, unauthorized and illegal access to bank accounts, identity theft, phishing, spoofing, unauthorized reading of emails, desktop counterfeiting, pornography, cyber harassment, fraudulent conversion of property, chat room conspiracy, sending computer virus, plagiarism, phreaking, and downloading unauthorized data etc.

Okesola and Adeta (2013) quoting Shinder (2002), define cybercrime as any criminal offences committed using the internet or another computer network as a component of the crime. Going further, they added that cybercrimes are offences that are committed against individual or group of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm to the victim directly using modern telecommunication networks such as internet and mobile phones.

Okesola and Adeta also have this to say about cybercrimes:

…in Nigeria, perpetrators of this crime who are usually referred to as ‘Yahoo Yahoo boys’ are taking advantage of e-commerce system available on the internet to defraud victims who are mostly foreigners in thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. They fraudulently represent themselves as having particular goods to sell or that they are involved in a loan scheme project… in this regard, so many persons have been duped or fallen victims. But this could not only be the technique used by these cybercriminals. There are several other techniques being used (emphasis mine)

Although some of the cybercrimes such as plagiarism may be committed unknowingly and without criminal intent, our concern here is the deliberate, unlawful conversion of, or obtaining money or goods by fraudulent means using false representation. This is prevalent among students who make a lot of money which they flaunt everywhere, including school campuses.

The ostentatious, reckless, oppressive and undisciplined students, who have escaped the cuffs of the law and have successfully made some ill-gotten money especially from cybercrime, build a somewhat distinct identity or  ‘class’  for themselves. These rascally students, adorned with the toga of youthful exuberance, in an attempt to maintain a distinct class and authority often oppress fellow students, some of whom are also lured into crimes.

The point must be made here that, not all students who exhibit affluence in schools are criminals. However, those who are from a very poor family background in an attempt to ‘belong’ or measure up with children of the elite, look for a quick way of making money to acquire the status symbol. Are we then surprised to see students who are yet to graduate from the university let alone get a job ride in exotic cars, wear latest fashion clothes, expensive jewellery and date the prettiest babes around even as they lavishly throw parties during which expensive wines are gulped?

Internet fraud or cybercrimes have become very fashionable, almost a profession among the youths especially students in higher institutions. Armed with a laptop, a phone, and data, students can successfully use their God-given talent, acquired knowledge of computer and the wide space that the internet provides to defraud unsuspecting victims of their hard-earned money. Their victims include individuals, organisations, companies, financial institutions, government agencies etc.

CAUSES

1. LOSS OF SOCIETAL VALUES: Many psychologists, scholars and theories have opined that loss of societal values and orientation is a major factor responsible for this social malady. The society lays emphasis on wealth without probing or censoring sources. The unbridled avarice or pursuit of the mundane and ephemeral things has further propelled this act of criminality among our students. In the memorable, succinct words of the Irish poet, W. B. Yeats, in his poem ‘The Second Coming’ which later formed the title of Achebe’s bestseller novel, Things Fall Apart:  it appears ‘The falcons cannot hear the falconer/ Things fall apart’ and it is apparent that ‘the centre cannot hold’.   
2.  THE HOME: The home is the first contact point for a growing child. Some parents and guardians have abdicated their responsibility of giving proper moral training to their wards. Some parents either deliberately or due to poverty deny their children basic rights. Some career parents run after their job without taking into cognizance the rights and proper upbringing of their children. Poor parenting has a devastating effect on children. The Holy Scripture itself emphasizes the role of parents when it says ‘train up the child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it’ (Proverb 22:6).    
3. THE SCHOOL: After the family, comes educational institutions. Here, teachers stand in loco parentis. They are supposed to help develop the cognitive, affective and psychomotor of the child. Regrettably, however, some teachers themselves exhibit all manner of indiscipline and professional misconducts. They are not disposed to giving expected moral training to the children. Though some students are impervious or unamenable to discipline, however, some teachers too are even worse. The reasons may be due to motivation, poor working condition/environment and lack of adequate knowledge.
4. PEER GROUP: Another factor responsible for students’ involvement in cybercrimes is the influence of the peer group or peer pressure on the early life of a child. Children tend to learn anti-social behaviours from their peers. Sociologists believe that peer relationship could impact negatively or positively on children as they tend to imitate one another.  Hay (2005) in a research carried out observes that ‘problematic peer relations may have adverse effects on the transition to school, with subsequent consequences…’  it is also said that ‘children look to join peer group who accept them, even if the group is involved in negative activities’. This is further buttressed by the Scripture, ‘evil communication corrupts good manner’ (1 Corinthians 15:33 KJV).
5. CHURCHES AND MOSQUES: Religious institutions like churches and mosques are also agents of socialization that should help in the moulding of individual character. But unfortunately some of these institutions do not preach salvation but miracles, affluence and wealth even without hard work.
6. FINANCIAL CONSTRAINT/DIFFICULTY: Economic hardship occasioned by lack of jobs is making it difficult for some parents or guardians to give financial support to their children. The need to survive therefore pushes some of the students into cyber and related crimes. To such students, going into cyber-crime is a means of survival and escape from poverty.

In addition to the above, students who indulge in cyber-crimes are propelled by what Abraham Maslow (1943) described in his hierarchy of needs as psychological needs, safety and security needs, (such as financial security, health and wellbeing), belongingness and love, esteem need and self-actualization.

Regrettably, students have graduated from cyber-crimes. They now involve in what is known as ‘yahoo plus’. This involves ritual killings and the use of charms to hypnotize target victims. Stories have been told of people stealing underwears for ritual purposes.

Some of these students involved in cyber-crimes have been arrested by the police, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other law enforcement agencies across the country.

Just recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in collaboration with the FBI paraded in Lagos one hundred and sixty-seven suspects for various cyber-crimes. Some of the suspects are undergraduates and graduates of various institutions of higher learning in Nigeria. According to the EFCC, the arrest was carried out in a collaborative operation tagged ‘Operation Rewired’. While addressing the Press on behalf of the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, the Director of Operations of the Commission, Mohammed Umar Abba, said the operation was ‘an international model operation targeted at the varied forms of computer-related frauds’ and that it was ‘designed to intercept and interrupt the global network of the internet fraudsters’. The press briefing also reads in part: ‘Before now, as you are all aware, we had relentlessly launched intensive investigative actions against the infamous Yahoo Yahoo Boys culminating into various strategic raids, the onslaught on criminals’ hideouts, prosecutions and convictions’.

The EFCC also claimed that it recovered from the fraudsters the sum of one hundred and sixty-nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty US Dollars and the sum of ninety-two million naira in addition to ‘four exotic cars, a plot of land in choice areas in Lagos and property in Abuja’. The Chairman opines that ‘there is no short cut to success other than hard work’ and advises that ‘the youth, therefore must shun crimes and its alluring temptation because it will always end in sorrow and regrets’.

Similarly, no fewer than thirty-two suspected ‘Yahoo boys’ were arrested by the EFCC in Abeokuta early this year. According to the Daily Post, fourteen of the suspects were said to be undergraduates. ‘Six exotic cars, laptops, cell phones, and several documents containing false pretences and fetish objects were among items recovered from the suspects’. Earlier in the year, about twenty-four students of the Olabisi Onabanjo University were arrested and subsequently paraded by the EFCC. The undergraduates were arrested for their involvement in ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ (cyber-crimes). Also, three yahoo boys were arrested in Ibadan in June 2019 by the EFCC. Two of the students claimed to be undergraduates of the Polytechnic Ibadan and Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo. The students, until their arrest, were said to be living ‘flamboyant life without a tangible source of income’.

Recently too six undergraduates (institutions not disclosed), according to PM News online, were convicted by the Federal High Court, Abuja for ‘internet-related offences’. The convicts who pleaded guilty to the charges preferred against them by the EFCC bagged between 3 and 6 months imprisonment with an option of fine of N300, 000 naira. The convicts were also ordered to forfeit to the Federal Government some of the items such as laptops and phones seized from them during investigations. Not only that, they were ordered to ‘refund all the monies fraudulently obtained from their victims’.

EFFECTS

Commission of cyber-crimes whether ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ or ‘Yahoo Plus’ among students have grievous consequences on the students themselves, the school, their parents and the society. Such students, blinded by the sudden and unexpected affluence, become deviant and arrogantly disrespectful to their lecturers, non-teaching staff and sometimes flagrantly confront the management of their schools. Some of them are also snobs and as such cannot associate with or live peacefully with their colleagues. This impact adversely on their academics.

Another effect of the criminal acts among students is that it impugns on their reputation, the integrity of their school and that of their parents and guardians as such students, when caught, are sometimes paraded before newsmen.

Needless to say that the criminal acts lead to loss of money, valuable property and vital information. In the case of Yahoo plus, it often results in loss of body parts and precious lives, as victims are maimed or gruesomely murdered for the ritual purpose by students who use them to get ‘spiritual or diabolic power’.

The far-reaching consequence of this is on the economy. Evidence abounds of youths mostly undergraduates who have hacked into accounts of individuals, and organisations, leading to financial loss for the individuals and the organisations. According to a report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies entitled, ‘Economic Impact of Cybercrime- No Slowing Down’ written by James Andrew Lewis in February 2018, ‘close to $600 billion, nearly one per cent of global GDP, is lost to cyber-crime each year’. And ‘which is up from a 2014 study that put global losses at about $445 billion’

Unbridled involvement of youths and students in cyber-crimes and other forms of financial crimes is affecting the reputation of Nigeria, and it ridicules the country in the comity of nations.

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The fight against the scourge of cyber and other financial crimes is expected to be fought head-on by individuals and government or its agencies.
2. Individuals must take conscious efforts to prevent loss of vital information by using very complex passwords to protect their information.
3. Cybercrimes, when discovered, should be promptly reported to relevant security agencies.
4. As parents or guardians, we must begin to do the needful by giving proper moral upbringing to our children, and we must monitor them either while at home or in school.
5. Governments must strengthen its security agencies saddled with the arduous responsibility of fighting cyber-crimes in Nigeria.
6. Security agencies must sustain the ongoing aggressive onslaught on cybercriminals either in Nigeria or elsewhere.
7. Nigerian government must also strengthen its bilateral collaboration with foreign governments in the onerous fight against the menace of cyber or financial crimes across the globe.
8. Government’s fight against cyber-crimes through appropriate legislation is a welcome development. The Cyber-crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act, 2015 and other relevant Acts which deal with cyber/financial crimes should be given further impetus. Stringent punitive measures should be put in place to deter criminals.
9. Cyber-crime study should be included in the school curricula and should be taught at all levels of education in Nigeria.

REFERENCES

1. DF. Early Peer Relations and their Impact on Children’s Development in: Tremplay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDev, eds. Bivin M. topic ed. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development (online). http//www.child-encyclopedia.com published in March 2005. Accessed September 15, 2019.
2. EFCC Press Briefing held in Lagos on Tuesday, September 2019 entitled ‘167 Nigerians Arrested in EFCC/FBI Joint Coordinated Operation’.
3. Okesola, FB and Adeta, AK, (2013). The Nature, Causes and Consequences of Cyber Crime in Tertiary Institutions in Zaria-Kaduna State, Nigeria. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 98-114. Retrieved online on 14^th September, 2019.
4. ‘6 Undergrads jailed in Abuja for Cyber Crimes’ – PM News (online) http.pmnewsnigeria.com. Accessed on 15^th September, 2019
5. Wikipedia, Peer Group. http://en.n.wikipedia.org. Accessed on 15^th September, 2015.