Season of Anomy: 'Yahoo' is Nigeria's 4th Income Earner.

Yahoo in Nigeria is not often your normal Yahoo. In fact, it could be a far cry from it, especially when it is placed in quotation marks. It then becomes a popular moniker for the Dark Web in the country. It is originally a popular slang for basic internet fraud such as love scams but it has rapidly grown beyond that to encompass activities such as fake job adverts, identity theft, hacking, false e-messages to gain to bank details, employment scams and so on. And so vast and growing is this illicit economy that if it were to be legitimate, it would be the fourth contributor to the economy, after agriculture, manufacturing and services. Tourism used to contribute about $14billion to the economy but conservative estimates put the proceeds of internet crime in Nigeria at $17 billion. This disparity could be wider. The Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east and growing insecurity in the rest of  the  country, especially kidnapping, have succeeded in putting many prospective tourists and visitors off and cyber crime is widely under-reported. Many victims simply chose not to report their losses as they are limited to what is easily affordable in affluent societies of the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and western Europe. Few fraudsters now move for big bucks, funds that will easily attract attention and reportage. A hundred dollars might be small beer in the US but in Nigeria, with the heinous exchange rate, it is huge money that rapidly accumulates and enables the criminal to buy flashy cars and homes and spend money like hell in nightclubs.
 The rank and file of fraudsters are growing by leaps and bounds and it is easy blaming the horrible unemployment situation in the country for it but it hardly justifies secondary school students and dropouts going to the extreme to own laptops and smartphones and delving straight into 'Yahoo' business. In a country hardly noted for its work ethics, 'Yahoo' money is easy money and it catapults successful ones into a life of glamour and adulation. 'Yahoo boys' are the toasts of a society that can go the extreme to worship wealth and these individuals always have their praises sung to high heavens by musicians at parties and other social functions. To make it in the society, internet fraudsters provide a dark inspiration to many, so also are politicians, many of who are also former scammers, guys who had simply bought their way to the top with the proceeds of their illicit internet income.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, better known as EFCC, is the agency set up by the federal government to specifically combat this menace and it has been doing its better to arrest culprits and prosecute them. Many have been sent to jail and cash and material proceeds confiscated. Some money have also been returned to victims but the bottom line is that the commission is stretched thin. The number of these fraudsters in Lagos alone is estimated to be ten thousand. Many cities abound in the country and the criminals need not even stay in urban areas again, where their activities will be easily scrutinized. Internet services now penetrate even the remotest of provinces and all the individual needs to do is acquire a laptop or smartphone and hide in a hut for months. The EFCC can only monitor few places and individuals at a time. The banks, which those funds must pass through are not helping at all. The anti-corruption posture of the Buhari administration has deprived many banks of slush funds corralled from government revenues. These used to be the cash cows of illegal gains and bank officials are just too happy now to collaborate with fraudsters, collecting hefty percentages in order to pass on 'Yahoo' money. That would be money laundering but many bank officials regard that as mere semantics.
But that is just a tiny view of the overall picture. Officials are confronted by resolute, intrepid youths in their early or mid twenties who are not afraid to serve a 7-year jail term, the maximum penalty under extant laws, knowing very well that after coming out of jail, they will still have enough strength and vigor to make something out of life with hidden wealth or to simply continue in their old ways. And the society will readily welcome them back, a group of citizens that regard 'Yahoo' as a 'soft crime'. Not few Nigerians argue that since colonialists plundered African resources, fraud proceeds are fair returns, a regain of what white people stole from their forefathers. The counter argument that countries like Sweden, Japan and China and many other countries that lose millions of dollars every year to these criminals never did engage in colonial adventures in Africa does not receive much reception. To them, any white-skinned person is fair game.
It is a dark economy that will not abate soon. The resources to combat it is not just there. And matters got to a head of recent when a video, not verified, surfaced on the net. In it, you could see a white woman screaming at the security forces to leave 'Yahoo' boys alone and that white women are just too happy sending money to them.
 

The Act of the Deal.

The act involved in the deal is far more complex than the art involved in the deal. The later encapsulates a lot of rhetoric, fine, dandy language; the former a lot of sweat, high doses of difficult reality. For the North Korean leader, any sign of success in his imminent summit with President Donald Trump of the United States will do. In fact, holding the summit at all is a victorious step for him: he faces a mass of countrymen whose sense of expectations is disorganized, scattered, muted and bland at best. Unless he is genuinely interested in denuclearization, reconciliation with his southern kinsmen and economic reforms even if they are only Chinese-style market tweaking. Then he would certainly need more than showboating and publicity. And a bad haircut.
For Trump, home expectations are more coherent and, in fact, could approach a sort of inquisition. He might think that his sanctions are working and that Kim Jong-un is already feeling the heat and is under intense pressure to cut a deal. That might be true but the real person under pressure to cut a deal is Trump himself. His critics and enemies, which are legion, are quick to point out that ever since he came to power, his most visible inclination is to dismantle, or attempt to dismantle, those deals he met in place, cut by his predecessors, and the list is lengthening day by day: Iran, Obamacare, Paris climate and a host of trade agreements. And he has done pretty little to fill the huge, gaping void left by the abrogations. His attempt to install his own healthcare has lacked a bit of coherence and has been swiftly dealt resounding blows everywhere. Trump often refers to himself as a builder but many are wont to argue he has rather behaved like a bulldozer, a wrecking party, a demolition crew. And if his argument is that he needs to pull down in order to construct, it is safe to counter that folks have seen much of the demolition, perhaps too much, and little, perhaps too little, of any form of building or rebuilding.
If he listens to his enemies or critics at all, even Americans that elected him, then he will strive as best as he can to cut a deal with Kim. He has achieved pretty puny domestic agreements, let alone foreign ones, and he will try to throw some pepper into his doubters' eyes. Besides, he has been touted as a master of  one-to-one, man-to-man negotiations and he will want to gratify his boys in this regard. Trump is heading to Singapore with his sights set on a trophy he can hold aloft to his enemies and in the process, cut himself some slack.
Which could bring in the twin dangers of urge and haste: a surge of adrenaline that could engender some sloppiness and throw whatever he has to agree with Kim into unintended webs of complexity. It is US-North Korea summit but thickly enmeshed in the web of negotiations are other countries. For a start, Japan, not in any way buoyed by the recent G-7 summit in Canada, may feel its own security concerns are being poorly handled. From South Korea to Philippines, there is the widespread suspicion that Trump does not think much of ditching allies, leaving them flat and dry and frying in the high desert. The summit may therefore turn out to be far more complex than he has envisaged and if he has negotiating powers, now is the time to deploy them. It is a golden opportunity.

President Trump

Kim Jong-un

G-7 Minus One Gentleman.

Disputes are not new to the G-7, a group of wealthy, industrialized and advanced nations that is made up of the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Being an association of countries with diverse economic, social and political histories, disagreements were bound to be plenty and loud but the good news was that they always managed to resolve them, or at least paper over the cracks. Simply because it was supposed to be a club of gentlemen well-versed in boardroom antics of compromise and hand-shaking. National leaders who must carry with them the negotiating skills and dignity of their respective countries The not-so-good news now is that the good news seem to be finding it very difficult and awkward to fan out. All because one of them does not now care a hoot about being a gentleman, cracking up huge fissures in the organization.
It is well-known President Trump of the US has a predilection for prowling on the battlefield, not in the boardroom, despite his corporate background, and, not surprisingly, did not think it twice before firing hefty salvos at gentlemen supposed to be his comrades in the G-7, slapping huge tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Europe, Canada and Mexico. The president argued the move would protect domestic producers of such commodities and help to boost national security. He conveniently forgot to add most of those home producers were struggling. And his colleagues in the EU, still smarting from his unilateral and very peremptory abrogation of the Iran deal which they helped to bring to the table with a great deal of effort and to which they were signatories, wasted no time in retaliating, announcing counter-tariffs on a wide range of goods from the US. In fact, the G-7 now looks like a madhouse, with a huge madcap of retaliations reminiscent of cold war battles. The schism has been widening since last year over conflicting positions on climate change, differences that came to a head with Trump's subsequent announcement to unilaterally withdraw from the landmark Paris agreement on climate change. This year G-7 summit in Canada is even expected to generate less agreement. Meetings have been at best fractious with leaders speaking loudly and unreservedly about divisions and Trump's body language suggesting his forthcoming June 12 summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un in Singapore was of far greater interest to him than sitting down in Canada to resolve a host of differences with his G-7 allies. Which is as well, as he has long been suspected of being uncomfortable at negotiating with groups as opposed to one-on-one, man-to-man, mano-o-mano negotiations that the summit with Kim envisages. And he has just dropped a cat in the cage of pigeons by suggesting Russia should be readmitted into the body. He knows it is a suggestion that will raise the decibel of commotion a shade further, giving him ample cover to sneak out of Canada.
As for the G-7 itself, the convulsions extend beyond Trump and may take some time quietening. It is too exclusive a club, practically needing the Crown Jewels for admittance. Requirements will have to be lowered and there is no reason for countries like South Korea and China and India and indeed Russia not to come in. The body might corner 60% of global wealth now but it is a share that is not going to increase in the near future. Many nations are coming up and a rival body might not be out of place. It is instructive to note that as the summit in Canada taking place, China was hosting a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security block, inviting Russia to the event. The G-7 should look over its shoulders in its squabbles.
AND THE GIRL LIFTS IT.
Simona Halep has just won the French Open, beating Sloane Stephens in the process. It would be her first Grand Slam, having lost on all three previous occasions she would reach the final. Still she remained unbowed, just like Chris Evert who faced exactly an ordeal in her career,

Simona Halep

and has just confirmed the suspicion that despair and defeat are not always linked. Congrats, girl.

Trump

G-7