EFCC’s Plans For ‘Yahoo Yahoo’ Boys

There are indications that cyber criminals popularly called Yahoo Yahoo boys arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may soon have their lives changed for the better as the anti-graft agency says plans are underway to rehabilitate them.

Acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, who gave the indication in Lagos, said the plan was necessary because they could be useful to the commission in future.

Delivering a paper titled ‘Strategic change administration and innovation to curb corruption in Nigeria,’ at the third All Administrators National Conference of the Chartered Institute of Administration, Magu said the commission has been able to secure 614 convictions between January and September.

He attributed this to the increase in the agency’s zonal offices from seven in 2009 to 18 in 2018.

The EFCC boss said the commission had secured collaboration with ECOWAS member-states to aid in prosecution of cross-border crimes.

He stated, “So if you carry money from Nigeria and escape to Ghana, we will just call the men in Ghana and say, ‘arrange this man and keep him for me.

“This is what the Yahoo-Yahoo boys like to do. But we are planning to rehabilitate them because they can be useful to us in future.”

According to him, in addition to increasing its zonal offices, the agency had also increased and trained more personnel all in an effort to curb corruption in the country.

Magu also said synergy is important in the fight against corruption.

He urged the CIA to collaborate with the agency in the fight by making sure that they administer their affairs in a corruption-free manner.

He also called on civil organisations and members of the public to report cases of corruption to the agency.