Leadership NG
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently declared that landlords who rent out apartments to internet fraudsters, popularly known as Yahoo Boys would face a jail term of 15 years.
Making this warning on its official Instagram page, the anti-graft agency invited members of the public to attend a town hall meeting on the theme: “Landlord: Give Your House to Yahoo Boys, Spend 15 Years in Jail.”
In the less than a minute video announcement, the EFCC said the purpose of the virtual town hall meeting called “EFCCConnect” is to expand its reach and engagement with citizens.
Clearly, the overall notion of fighting and, if possible, eliminating internet fraud, especially among young Nigerians as intended by this scheme, is flawless, but the idea of arresting landlords for renting their apartments to suspected yahoo-yahoo boys, in our opinion, is overzealous, rash, lazy and reactive. And it is sure to attract an avalanche of litigations on the EFCC.
Evidently, the place of awareness, as it would seem, intended by this new initiative of the anti-graft agency is and should be well applauded by every concerned Nigerian, considering the magnitude of the negative impact internet fraud is having on the country and its future.
Nigeria, sadly, has a notorious reputation of having a lot of young to middle-age persons involved in internet fraud. Their despicable actions have since gained global attention as some of them have been arrested in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
Beyond the bad image Nigeria faces over this social menace, the reality that the major culprits are young persons, sometimes, young enough to be in secondary school, portends a middle-term social disorder and a long-term disastrous future, if drastic measures are not urgently taken.
To this end, all measures within actionable reason and legality are permissible, but not this arrest of landlord approach as advanced by the anti-graft agency.
In a clime like ours where systematic data and records are still hard to come by, it is tough for a landlord to adequately verify whatever information a prospective tenant presents to him or his representative…
