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Yahoo Yahoo mothers and new morality

THIS week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) scored a moral victory, or so it seemed. It secured the conviction of a woman, one Mrs Debest Osarumwense, for aiding her son’s Yahoo Yahoo business. For the next five years, unless otherwise decided by a superior court of record, Mrs Osarumwense, a resident of Benin, the Edo State capital, is to spend her life behind bars. She had received the sum of N91, 296,150, “being proceeds of his criminal activities,” from her son, Endurance Osarumwense, a Yahoo Boy. Had she lived in the days of the monarchy, she would have been banished from the town with her son only as an act of mercy. Thieves and their accessories were usually beheaded. As late as the 70s, Mrs Osarumwense’s fate would have been permanently sealed by her time in prison, as society would have treated her like a leper post-prison. But we are in 2022 and Mrs Osarumwense, apparently a member of the Association of Mothers of Yahoo Boys who chose to flow with the current tide, who wanted to Bam Bam and chill with the Big Boys, may yet return from prison to lead a market women’s association.

In the days of proverbs, the Yoruba community used to disparage women like Debest, saying: “Your son is no dry cleaner yet brings bales of cloth home. You see a thief but fail to apprehend him!” In those days, whoever had stolen once, even if he covered himself in aran the prince of clothing materials, was deemed to cover himself in the fabric of theft. Work was the antidote to poverty, and whoever birthed a thief had no child. Those were the days when if okete grew old, it sucked the breasts of its offspring. These days, when okete grows old, it simply dies (“Ti okete ba dagba, o ma ku ni.”) Brain work (being soji) is the antidote to poverty, not labour—you can work till you drop dead and receive no salaries– and whoever has stolen once only needs to avoid being caught next time. Smart thieves are given chieftaincy titles, especially when they are what’s up (highly organized) criminals. Gone are the days of proverbs. Now we are in the days of post-proverbials where, as the late Fuji lord Sikiru Ayinde Barrister quipped, “It is the person daylight catches unawares that is a thief.”

Many mothers nowadays are no longer moral and ethical guides: they have ‘woken up’ and realized that the only thing society values is money. As pop singer Davido says, “Yeah gimme the money eh (eeh)/Biko ye nego/orimi jekin jekin lowo/Life is all about the money eh.”Goodluck Jonathan, confined to hell by critics because of politics, was right in his observations: this is a hypocritical society that purports to hate stealing but glorifies corruption. A politician is derided only if (s)he steals “small money” or if (s)he is not “our person.” Politicians who steal big are wake-up guys. And so as wake up/soji individuals, mothers of Yahoo Boys fortify their sons with charms to facilitate maga acquiescence. The maga is the victim and as the Naira Marley the Marlian king says, “everyone is a thief: the native diviner is a Yahoo Boy.”

Ladies dating an ex-convict, especially ladies of the night, cannot be convict-shamed these days. If you dare to warn as a nosey neighbour, “Rose, that guy is an ex-convict o!”, you would feel sorry for yourself that day: “And so? Obasanjo no go prison? Dem no lock Buhari? Oga, shift abeg! Shift make I see road, aproko! Who ask you? Na so dem go dey chook mouth for wetin no concern dem!” An ex-convict with a lot of dollars to throw around is not a social leper: he is an odogwu, a Chairman. Criminals are perpetually honoured on the streets: “En, grandmaster! Breakfast in Aso Rock, lunch in Washington, dinner in Dangote! March on me make you pass, Ezego, Odogwu! Baba Agbalagba! Chairman!!”

The boundaries of morality are shifting. Which is why, among theatre and music celebrities, there’s a contest in parading daughters birthed during puberty. I see thespians engaging in competition displaying their barely-clothed daughters on social media, tactically advertising olosho business. In this society there are no saints: you cannot know who is not a criminal until the next scandal. In the days when the Baba Ijesa case ruled the airwaves, DCP Abba Kyari was one of Nigeria’s most treasured national icons. The spirit of theft crime seems to have gone haywire and even street thieves are becoming more daring: just last week, the police surprised a brazen thief in my area at dawn. He had broken into a provisions shop and had almost finished packing everything in sight into his sports car parked just the other side of the road. In the good old days, thieves operated largely under the cover of darkness. As the proverb says, “It is at midnight that one does evil.” Today, evil is done in broad daylight: thieves steal phones at high tables. If you “lose guard” at a high table, admiring yourself, your iphone will exit the venue long before you do. And what is more, you would be too ashamed to ask who stole your GSM!!

Time was when fraudsters and criminals did not wear beaded crowns, and when queens were not tattlers and overbleached morons. Not today. Sometime ago, a royal misfit was captured in a video by his consort rolling up a joint. Just how can the town experience calm when the king is a drug addict? There are so many criminals in high places: military chiefs toy with defence funds and ill-equipped soldiers’ bones get crushed in war. Even presidential aspirants seem to be Yahoo Boys in another cloak.

And so, my point is this: EFCC and others must be commended for going after criminals. But their win is severely hamstrung by society, making it a limited win indeed. The truth is that this society, by reason of the collapse of religious and family values, has shifted the bounds of morality in ways that are too incredible to even speak of. And the situation is not helped by the limitations of the anti-graft outfits: some people’s parents haul sacks of money in broad daylight without any hassles. This society really teaches no lessons!

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