Where ‘yahoo yahoo’ came from and how to end it

PEOPLE have always wondered where the term ‘yahoo yahoo’ came from. Yahoo! is a web provider that provides a web portal, mail services and others. It is not as common as Google these days.

‘Yahoo yahoo’ was coined from the above mentioned Yahoo service that was a major means of communicating with people globally. In the 90s, the only way to do anything on the web was to go to a cyber café. You went in, got tickets on hourly basis and did whatever you wanted to do before the hour runs out — from checking your mails to doing research. But mostly, people spent their time chatting with friends and families all over the world on Yahoo! Messenger service; and this is where the term ‘yahoo yahoo’ came from.

With help of cyber cafes in the 90s scamming became easy. Cafes provided access to Yahoo! Mail and a new way of communication and of making money.

The Nigerian government did try to stop them through raids on cyber cafes. The number of cafes reduced considerably. Between 2006 and 2008 ‘yahoo yahoo’ took a pause.

Soon, the expansion of portable devices the smartphones and laptops hit the Nigerian markets. The early 2010s signaled the end of cafes and brought about a mobile generation of cyber criminals free from the shackles of cyber cafes.

With the way technology has improved, so have Nigerian scams. With language translators, people are able to communicate in languages they have never learned and this makes scammers more effective.

The obvious thing for the law to do is to enforce penalties. When scammers get caught they should be made to face justice which means imprisonment or hefty fees in cases of pardon

The next generation should be educated morally and spiritually by parents, teachers in other for them not to indulge in the act of ‘yahoo yahoo’.

• Seye Alaba, Ibadan

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