Cybercrime is any form of fraudulent
practice that involves the use of computer. It is otherwise called the Yahoo
syndrome which is an off shoot of the advanced fee fraud which became popular
about 3decades ago and now prevalent among unemployed graduates, undergraduates
and school drop outs.
In sociological parlance, Crime is
viewed as a deviant behavior that violates the laws of a local, state or national
government. It covers any form of behavior that threatens the state or citizens.
Cybercrime is one of the many forms of crime where the knowledge of the
computer technology is used to perpetuate criminal acts like bursting into
other peoples bank accounts, cloning financial transactional cards to withdrawn
money illegally from their victims bank accounts, transacting fake business activities
with unsuspecting others in the cyberspace with the aim of defrauding. It also involves production
of fake financial documents, travel documents and even fraudulent manipulations
of the voters’ database. The mobile
phone as a minicomputer has been one of the latest incentives for cybercrime.
Many postulations are paraded to explain this
deviant behavior in our society that used to place high premium on hard work and
responsible wealth creation. Nigeria as a country is a marriage of over 250
ethnic groups with different cultures but there are certain cultural values
that we all hold dearly such as hard work, cooperation, contentment and care for
fellow brothers.
However, these values are not only
historical to the young ones but they remain a myth since they had grown in a
culture of materialism, individualism and corruption. A good number of our Marxist writers put the
blame on our colonial masters, a position that excuses the elite class of
taking responsibility for their failure in giving wholesome leadership. I argue that against the background of our
beautiful values of cooperation, contentment and brotherhood was pre-colonial
elitist rulership cultural software that had no immediate connection to the
masses. The elite class became brazen
and reckless even after the colonial masters have left which has produced a
society characterized by injustice, corruption and nepotism. Most scholars that
have studied the issue of corruption and by extension cybercrime have adopted the
sociological approach and fail to give it a psychodynamic analysis. As a people,
we do not like deep introspection as we prefer to blame others just like our youngsters
that indulge in cybercrime still do today. We refuse to ask pertinent questions
about our values and what propels them despite our religiosity.
The
young man that indulges in cybercrime or yahoo yahoo may have seen his father
and by extension the family suffers economic hardship occasioned by the misrule
of the elite class. Some of their
fathers worked hard all of their lives and died without pension, unable to pay
their school fees and possibly died in a rented apartment even though they
lived by the tenets of hard work, cooperation and honesty. A good number of
these children who indulge in cybercrimes were brought by reared by single-mothers
since the fathers absconded from home due to economic difficulties. These boys
grew up without a father figure as their mothers struggled to make ends meet in
a society where they see the corrupt elite class live in stupendous wealth.
This sets up some cognitive dissonance in the minds of the growing lads against
the background of anger and hopelessness. Therefore, they choose not to
creatively engage their intellectual resources along the line of responsible
creation of wealth that their fathers took without reward, but employ their
intellectual resources to acquire wealth in the fastest way possible since the
common denominator that our society respects is money. They have seen the children of the looters
spend money recklessly while some of this thieving elite class snatch their girlfriends , oppress their families
both in the city and in the village. The current disdain for creative use of
intellectual resources is fuelled by unemployment, lack of role models to
demonstrate responsible wealth creation even among our religious leaders who are
supposed to be custodians of sound values. Legislation against cybercrimes is a good step
measure, but beyond the punitive dimension, our young ones need value
recalibration starting from the home, the school and our religions system. They
need an avenue where they can challenge us to clarify their confusion about our
societal values as we encourage them to be hopeful and engage in responsible
use of their intellectual powers. These young ones have had to violate their
conscience through the use of psychoactive substances with profound negative
effects on their mental health. Just as cybercrime is being seriously checked,
a good number are actually mentally ill as they resort to rituals and other paranoid
means to sustain their status since their reality testing is impaired.
Dr. Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808 (WhatsApp Only)
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