The adventure of unsuccessful success

THE ADVENTURE OF UNSUCCESSFUL SUCCESS

Against the backdrop of my curiosity to know, lead me to scanning of the rèsumè from the doctrinal week held at Ejigbo some weeks back. My article on this thematic topic was however triggered by a portion of the talk on youth choice of career. Hence, this presupposes that this article will be applicable more than not to the terrain of the young ones.

In our society as a whole, many if not every person craves to succeed in one way or the other. Success in this pericope can be regarded as growth. Success however varies from one notion to the other. It can come in positive way, so also it can occur in negative way depending on the individual relative perspectives. To say a student who passed his examination succeeded will be right, so also to say a gang of thieves that went for a robbery operation succeed will be right in another perspective. At this point, one will be forced to ask if there is authentic or ideal success.

The paradox of unsuccessful successes sounds contradictory and impossible. Meanwhile, it is plausible as it sounds. The youth of today are mostly found pitching their tent under this falsified prospects successes. The young ones under this group operate on the pre-notion that ‘the end justifies the means.’ At the heart of this mentality renders the means irrelevant in as much as the end is procured. An average young boy or if you like man will download varieties of lies for a lady just to get her for sex. For him, the end success matters more and not the means. An average lady on the contrary will also long to secure a boy friend for herself just to feel belong to the prevailing trend. At this point I wonder the standard for success the ‘now-society’ is setting for young ones. Indeed, a backup-fired form of success.

In furthering the aforementioned, some young boys in the society have turned themselves to young ritualists, however they claim to be yahoo or smart guys. Today in the society, these set of crooks claim to be most successful amidst their peers. Their ocean of money and assets has given them the impetus to feel they are on the top of the world.  The kind of success young ones here portray is obviously pseudo successes. Indeed, one certain fact is that all these things are contingents. They will go and the repercussions will always back-shoot.

The pseudo adventure does not in any way exclude those who live a fake life. For people like this, virtually everything about them is erroneous and deceptive. They are mostly found in the menace of impersonating during examination, examination malpractices, bribery, advance gambling and other irony adventures. One out of the funny things about these people is that they eat and feed on lies. In fact it has turned out to be their way of life and they think they can succeed through it. The question however is that, how long can one continue to live in pretense?

Ab initio, in one way or the other, everyone is guilty of venturing into realm of exploring unsuccessful successes but the end will always redefine itself in form of repercussion in the long run. The paradox of unsuccessful successes is therefore a form of eroding success that cannot stand the simplest taste of time.

As a way of conclusion to this discuss, it will be apposite to redefine what we often refer to a success. Are they authentic/ideal success or pseudo/unsuccessful success? The society of today can rarely set an ideal standard for success for you and I. Hence, personal conviction is very essential. Any success that one cannot convincingly claim to be the hand pulling its trigger is an unauthentic one, as well as success bias to moral conscience is a mere illusion. Hence the most authentic success should be geared towards attaining an austere reality with the transcendental one.

NIGERIA 419 SCAM: A SETBACK TO AFRICANS INTEGRITY

The fact that I’m one of the latest exploited victims of the sculpulus group of 419 scam triggered my exposè on it. Nigerian 419 scam is however a major concern for the global community. The term ‘419’ is coined from section 419 of the Nigerian criminal code (part of Chapter 38: Obtaining Property by false pretence and Cheating) dealing with fraud. Nowadays, the axiom ‘419’ generally refers to a complex list of offences which in ordinary parlance are related to stealing, cheating, falsification, impersonation, forgery and fraudulent representation of facts. The main difference between ‘419’ scam and stealing is the ‘false pretense’ which is the major element in’419’ scam.

In fact, the menace of Nigeria 419 has become an alarming issue in the globe at large.  The introduction, growth and utilization of information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs) have been accompanied by an increase in illegal activities. With respect to cyberspace, mobile phones and tablets anonymous servers, hijacked emails and fake websites are being used as a tool and medium for fraud by cyber scammers.

It is appalling that the advance fraud scam is also referred to as a “Nigerian Letter” because large scale use of the 419 fraud first began in that country.  Sometimes when one take a reflection on the fast outraging menace of 419 scam in Nigeria especially among the youths, one would immediately question the state of such people’s moral conscience. Perhaps, one may immediately conclude that they lack sense of gult as well as they have no iota of human conscience and human sympathy. Thus, we may likely say that morality does not exist in such people’s mind. In fact, for them it is a way of life.

In adendum to the fact that Nigeria is one of the top leading corrupt countries of the globe, she has also turned to the deport of advance fraudsters. Against this back drop, many Nigerians outside the confine of the country cannot emphatically claim to be Nigerians without a rethink of such claim. People especially foreign ones fear Nigerians now like a plague. Many Nigerians in Diaspora are even ashamed to admit that they are Nigerians out there. I’ve heard about corporate places in western countries that have stickers in their workplace saying, ‘do not do business with a Nigerian’ They must have had it pretty rough by Nigerians. It’s really that bad. In furthering the above, it will be apposite to discussing about the trend of yahoo boys.

THE TREND OF YAHOO BOYS

Over the past couple of years, a new trend has been birthed among the Nigerian youths known as Yahoozee. I don’t know how it came about, but these Yahoozee or Yahoo boys as they fondly call themselves prey upon the innocence and greed of foreigners who want to make some quick cash or gain. They have various methods which they use to waylay unsuspecting victims into paying up. After they have hundreds or thousands of emails from notable sites, using Email Extracting software, they are able to send bulk emails or spam to these people, requesting them to deposit money for so and so reason, or for a little charity work or something. These days are more elaborate and some even own well developed web sites for their work. And these kids are hauling it in, you have to see, they drive around in cars you can only see on rap videos. It is sad!

It will interest you readers to know that nowadays, we don’t have ordinary Yahoo Boys again, what we now have is ‘Yahoo Plus’. When one hears this anachronism, what quickly comes to one’s mind in form of question is; Yahoo plus what? Youth of today now use evil spiritual power or charm if you like to fraud people out there. This simply makes it Yahoo plus charm. At this point, I asked myself the different between ‘Money Ritual’ and ‘Yahoo Plus.’  I suppose the difference between those two aforementioned evil acts is simply the difference six (6) and half of a dozen. Hence, the so called Yahoo Plus Boys are those I will tag with the title of ‘Professional Ritualists.’

The 419 scammers commonly refer to victims as a ‘mugu’ or ‘maga’, a Nigerian word for “big fool” popularized by the YouTube song “ I Go Chop Your Dollar”.The song’s lyrics include “you are the mugu, I be the master” and “419 is just a game”. Scammers themselves are sometimes referred to as ‘Yahoo-Boys’, ‘Awon Omo Wobe’, Real Guys and many others. These names sometimes come with a bit effisy but I think they deserve something worse than that. They deserve names like apanilekun jaye, alafowora, Adigun-jale, fraud stars and many others. In Nigeria today, there are too many to count but it is obvious that most of the 170 million Nigerians are not aware that some of their fellow country-men have earned them the dubious honour of becoming the world globalizer for Fraud.

CONCLUSION AND THE WAY OUT

The greatest fallacy one will run into is to say that one can easily tackle this great outrageous scam menace in the society. The greatest problem I think we are really facing in this country is that the whole system is corrupt. Hence the moral justification to really fight the scam menace is at a minimal on the part of the leaders. The question is ‘who is catching who?’ we have to undergo a rethink, quarantine and vaccinate the whole economy system before we can think of the best technique to curb or tackle this problem.

Also, a popular clichè goes thus; “an idle hand is the devil’s workshop.” The horrible condition of the country on employment opportunity for the young graduate has really added more than a bit to this problem. Most of those who are found perpetuating this evil are the youths and sometime their helpless condition lure them to take up this unpleasant way of life. However, inasmuch as the problem of unemployment cannot sufficiently give a justified ground of the menace, then a strict measure in form of proper sanction should be taken by the government on anyone who is found perpetuating this stinking evil act.

Lastly, Nigeria as a country has become a place where fraudulent has been considered a way of life for the people. This I will call ‘a state of chronic instability’. At this point of time in our country, we need to re-examine our state of morality and undergo a deep reflection on how we can really establish a firm and sound moral standard for people especially the young ones. Consequently, since most of the people perpetuating this evil are from a family, then we should question the background and where they learn the dubious attitude from. The first step to fighting this corruption is re-examination of our conscience. Our leaders at this point have to be on their feet to really tackle this problem that has painted the image of the country black to an almost nonredeemable level.