Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Narrative of Illicit Money: Yahoo Boy (Format) of Cyber Scams and Governance Challenges in Africa

Taiwo A. Olaiya, Kazeem O. Lamidi and Moruf Ayodele Bello

Mainstream development literature on financial crimes in Africa have focused on the illicit financial flows from institutionalized and transnational organized crime, such as natural resource scams, illegal arts and culture trading, and human, drug and arms trafficking as significant contributors to governance challenges in Africa. Commensurate attention to money flows from individuated scammed sources, and illegal transactions are still largely missing in action. Nevertheless, Illicit funds from personalized sources have permeated and compromised security and governance processes and structures in countries like Nigeria and Ghana where millions of individuals, mainly youth, are engaged in online-induced swindles that threaten to decay the value system further and exacerbate the festering governance and security crises. This paper attempts a discursive reconstruction of the attractions and rationalities peddled by African youth, and the societal conditionalities, in pursuing money and gains from online illicit foreign and domestic scams conceptually called ‘Yahoo’, and ritual money or other criminal sources called ‘Yahoo+’. The paper contributed to extant works on the continued trends in illicit money recognizing that studies in illicit financial flows from non-conventional illicit sources in Africa are rather scanty. The paper presents the narratives of the economic and survival justifications adduced by the perpetrators of online criminals, mostly youth, who in some cases are in the real sense engaged in pure criminal activities or scams outright. The paper found evidence of peer group influences and harsh economic conditions, as well as lack of calculated social engineering for youth bailouts as some of the leading factors influencing Africa's youth's engagement in 'Yahoo' and 'Yahoo+'. Apart from its objectionable effects for increasing crime rates and ritual killings, the paper argues that the proximate consequences of such impropriety from the youth relate significantly to governance and security implications, and economic distortions. While the focus is on Africa, empirical illustrations were surveyed with examples drawn mainly from Nigeria and Ghana.

Published Date: 2020-07-25; Received Date: 2020-04-17