DURING the arrest of some 19 internet fraudsters in Ibadan, Oyo State, last week, the anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), recovered certain tools of their nefarious trade, including laptops, 20 telephones, including 10 iphones, exotic cars and, curiously, female underwear. For quite a while now, female panties have been trending as the new mode of ritual money making among internet fraudsters also known as yahoo boys. It is indeed absurd and surprising that these fraudsters can deploy modernity and retrogressive traditional methods in the same breath.
Earlier, the Ondo State Police Command had arrested one Adojoh Ojonugwa for allegedly stealing his brother’s wife’s panties in Akure. The suspect was arrested with a pastor, Olajide Ogunleye, who was also alleged to be involved in the crime. Five panties were found inside Ojonugwa’s bag, two of which reportedly belonged to his brother’s wife, while his sister owned the others. Although the Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Frank Mba, recently averred that the force might not be able to investigate the occult dimensions of panties theft since it cannot be empirically proven, the popular belief in this clime is that it is part of the get-rich-quick gimmicks of the yahoo boys through fetishist means.
The country has so sunk into the abyss that the theft of female panties has suddenly become an issue of national concern. It is easy and convenient to dismiss the phenomenon with a wave of the hand and to brand it an old wives’ tale, but the alacrity and seriousness deployed in robbing women of their panties speak to the criticality of the issue. Somehow, the increasing economic and financial pressures occasioned by the poor economy has so impacted negatively on the social space that mutual trust and interdependence, even among siblings and others sharing filial relationships, have all but waned as the society becomes increasingly individuated and atomistic.
Now, any and every means of survival seems proper. Survival has been abstracted as the first law of morality and it seems pointless trying to prove the idiocy of the whole matter to those gullible, hapless citizens whose behaviours are bound to be modulated by their beliefs. The police can only charge these panties thieves with stealing, which may not attract the punishment commensurate with the intended crime. It is sad and regrettable that Nigeria has come to this sorry pass, bogged down by banalities when the world has moved on into super modernity. To be sure, the intense poverty in the land is fuelling these desperate antics of survival, but it also has to do with the collapse of societal values. Now, the virtues of hard work, creativity and patience are easily spurned.
Ordinarily, it should bother the country’s establishment that the youth population is ensnared by the get-rich-quick syndrome. Without credible role models for such virtues as hard work, patience and creativity, is it any surprise that those youths who are bereft of talents in music have chosen to be led into nefarious pastimes like stealing panties and buying hair from barbers’ shops and hair dressers’ salons? It has become imperative to work studiously on those desirable values that the country’s leadership wants to dominate the socioeconomic space. It should repudiate greed, graft, living on the fast lane and the get-rich-quick syndrome.
It is indeed worrisome that in all the ugly instances, certain so-called pastors and self-styled men of God of all faiths are implicated in perpetrating acts that erode the value base of the society. The government has a bounden duty to urgently reduce the pressure of poverty and desperation in the country and make survival a less arduous task. Economic depression instigates the people to commit debasing acts, hence the return to the Stone Age as a coping mechanism. The government must solve the myriad of socioeconomic problems and challenges confronting the country.