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OPINION: Fulani, Hausa And Yoruba Truths [Monday Lines]

Published

10 months ago

January 6, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

We say in Yoruba that if we do a census of slaves, slaves will be sad. History, an account of facts of the past, is always injurious to the health of sick nations. And, Nigeria is sick. We’ve all become ethnic nationalists – especially after the coming of the last regime. Questions previously unasked are now being asked. What is the meaning of the name of my ethnic group? And my neighbours’? How did the word ‘Fulani’ come to be? How about the meanings of ‘Yoruba’, ‘Hausa’, Igbo’, ‘Nupe’? Who coined those names? You and I know you bear a name but have you ever asked who truly suggested that name? Your parents? A relation? Or a neighbour? Or is it just a plain alias?

On the last day of 2024, our Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, announced on Channels Television that from 2025, History would be reintroduced in our primary and secondary schools as a subject of study. “We now have people up to 30 years old totally disconnected from our history. It doesn’t happen in any part of the world. From 2025, our students in primary and secondary schools will have that as part of their studies,” he declared.

I heard him and wondered which ‘history’ would be taught in our schools that won’t ignite a ‘civil war’? The one written by my conquerors proving how inferior I am to them or the one written by me that affirms my tribe’s superiority over my neighbours’?

We are a nation that will never agree on anything. Not on history; not even on truth. Towards the end of last year, three ‘historians’ wrote on what is true about Yoruba history and each of the three accounts cancelled out the others. First it was Kemi Badenoch (a Yoruba and leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom), who said she should not be lumped with northern Nigeria because she had nothing in common with that part of the country. “Being Yoruba is my true identity, and I refuse to be lumped with northern people of Nigeria, who were our ethnic enemies, all in the name of being called a Nigerian,” she announced.

Then came a reaction from Nigerian-American professor of communication, Farooq Kperogi, a Bariba (Baatonu) from the north central who mocked Kemi’s position and told her that her Yoruba ethnic group owed its name and a chunk of its history and language to northern Nigeria. Kperogi wrote in his 21 December, 2024 Saturday Tribune column that even “the term Yoruba… originates from — of all places — northern Nigeria!” For effects, he dug down and declared that “‘Yoruba’ is, after all, an exonym first bestowed upon the Oyo people by their northern neighbours, the Baatonu (Bariba) of Borgu, before it was shared with the Songhai (whose scholar by the name of Ahmad Baba has the distinction of being the first person to mention the name in print as “Yariba” in his 1613 essay titled “Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāfmajlūb al-Sūdān”).” Kperogi went further to give examples of many Yoruba words that were borrowed from Hausa or Arabic or other northern Nigerian languages.

Kperogi’s position on ethnic identity and on who named whom generated considerable interest all through the last weeks of 2024. I read a commenter on LinkedIn who reacted to Kperogi with “Bariba is the father of the Yoruba.” I read counter posts. Reactions depended on the ethnic identity of the person reacting.

Nigerian-American Arts History professor, Moyo Okediji of the University of Texas at Austin soon joined the fray. He wrote on Monday, 23 December, 2024, that he was grateful to Kemi Badenoch for distancing herself, as a Yoruba, from northern Nigeria because of the terrorism there. Kemi’s remark, Okediji said, echoed what millions of Yoruba people had in mind but dared not say “in a country in which you get arrested and criminally prosecuted for saying what you consider to be plain truth.” Okediji noted reactions from the north on what Kemi said. He then dwelt extensively on Kperogi’s piece. He gave his own truth on the origin of the name ‘Yoruba’ quoting his grandmother: “Yoruba is a shortened form of ‘A yọ orù bá wọn dáná ọmọ tuntun.’ It is a panegyric phrase for both Ọ̀ṣun and Ọya, but especially for Ọ̀sun.” On the borrowed words, Okediji disagreed again with Kperogi. He wrote: “Would it occur to him— and others like him who have made similar claims in the past, and who continue to espouse that sentiment—that those foreigners could have borrowed the words from Yoruba people rather than the other way round? Why do they assume that if x is found in Yoruba language and it is also found in the Arabic language, x must be an Arabic word by default, but not a Yoruba word?” Okediji titled his piece ‘Of Kemi Badenoch and Yoruba etymologies.’ It was widely shared by Yoruba ‘nationalists’ across social media platforms.

I read Kperogi and told him I would try to add my voice to the discourse. He said he would read me. While I was reading him, I thought I should seek answers to similar questions of what meaning have the names Hausa and Fulani, the obvious point of reference of both Kemi and Okediji.

In his ‘The Wanderers’ published in African Affairs in January 1946, M. D. W. Jeffreys argues that many present-day tribal names were nicknames. He then proceeds to “show how widespread in Africa is a tribal name whose meaning boils down to “wanderers, migrants, nomads, foreigners, or strangers…”

The name ‘Hausa’, what does it mean? Getting an answer to that question has been of interest to researchers even before the last century. We see an effort in ‘The Origin of the Name ‘Hausa” authored by Neil Skinner and published in the Journal of the International African Institute in July 1968. Skinner suggested that the name was from the Songhay which held sway in Sub-Sahara Africa between the 15th and the 17th centuries. He wrote: “The Songhai word for ‘east’ is hausa, which would seem to be fairly conclusive. ‘Hausa’ also has the connotations of ‘left bank of river ‘ and ‘bush’ (in the West African sense of ‘wild, uncultivated country’); and it may be that for Songhai-speakers there was an added pejorative significance of ‘bushmen ‘ – a term of abuse in modern West African pidjin.”

Indeed, 58 years earlier, A. J. N. Tremearne, in his ‘Notes on The Origin of the Hausas’ published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts in July 1910, traced the root of the name and concluded that “the word ‘Habeshi’ was a term of contempt applied by Arabs to mixed races, and Hausa (ba-haushe) is a modification.” I wonder how many Hausas will agree to this history today.

The Fulani know that their traditional ethnic identity name is Fulbe but they have accepted to be called ‘Fulani’, the name their Hausa neighbours gave them. What does that mean? In ‘L’origine du nom Fulani’ published in 1944, Jeffreys tells us that the words ‘Philistine’ and ‘Fulani’ “come from a common root F-L which in the Indo-European languages means ‘foreigner, stranger, alien’ and, by a secondary meaning, ‘inferior.’” It is also from Jeffreys (1946) that we learn that ‘Nupe’ carries almost the same meaning. To state what ‘Nupe’ means, Jeffreys uses a Nupe tale of origin. He writes that: “‘Nupe’ itself means ‘stranger, fugitive, wanderer’. Among the Nupe, there is a legend to this effect, that a certain stranger, a hunter, called Abduazizi, travelling from the East, arrived with his family at the town of Doko Daji, where he settled among the Beni. He was given the title of Nefiu, the Arabic word for fugitive, whence arises the corruption Nufe (Nupe).” He apparently took that from O. Temple and Charles Lindsay Temple’s ‘Notes on the Tribes, Provinces, Emirates and States of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria’ (1919).

M.D.W. Jeffreys, quoted in the narratives above, was British government’s official anthropologist and colonial administrator in Southern Nigeria from 1915 to 1932. He did very extensive research into the histories and cultures of ethnic groups in southern Nigeria and is acknowledged as having published hundreds of articles on the subject “in specialist journals including ‘Africa’, ‘Man’, Folklore’ and the ‘Journal of the Royal African Society’.”

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Like Kperogi, I am not a historian but I have always been interested in that part of his (Kperogi’s) piece on where and how the Yoruba got the name ‘Yoruba’. We had a back and forth exchange on it on the pages of the Tribune five years ago. In my column of 28 October, 2019, I engaged Kperogi on his claim that his Baatonu (Bariba) people gave the Yoruba people the name ‘Yoruba’. I suggested then that given what professional historians, ethnographers and anthropologists had done in that area, the name ‘Yoruba’ may have existed long before the Bariba and the Yoruba had cause to meet. I challenged his thesis then by asking if he did not think the existence of ‘Yoru’ or ‘Yorubu’ in his Baatonu (Baruba) language could be as a result of the very long history of interaction between Baruba and the Yoruba dating back to the sack of Oyo Ile by the Nupe and the exile of the Alaafin to Borgu in about 1535 (See Richard Smith’s ‘The Alaafin in Exile: A Study of the Igboho Period in Oyo History’ published in The Journal of African History, Vol. 6, Issue 1, March 1965 from pages 57 – 77). Could it be that the word was an export that accompanied the Alaafin to Baruba’s Borgu which then became corrupted to Yoru/Yorubu? Again, can Kperogi examine Sultan Bello’s and other researchers’ findings which indicate that the word ‘Yarba’ or ‘Yaarba’ may have existed outside sub-Sahara Africa long before Yoruba-Baruba and Yoruba-Hausa/Fulani interactions?

I have in the last one week reread eminent historian, Professor J.A. Atanda’s ‘The Historian and The Problem of Origins of Peoples in Nigerian Society’ published in December 1980. Atanda writes that “Sultan Bello’s account of the origin of the Yoruba people derived inspiration from an old Arabic text, ‘Azhar al-Ruba fi Akhbar Bilad Yoruba’ written by one Dan Masani, a noted scholar of Katsina, who lived in the seventeenth century and died in 1667.” Atanda explains further, with references, that even Dan Masani is believed to have “obtained his information from Yoruba converts to Islam.” What this suggests is ‘Yoruba’ as an endonym – the reverse of Kperogi’s exonymic explanation of the name.

Kperogi was sure that some illustrious Basorun of Oyo, including Basorun Gaa were not Yoruba. Kperogi wrote that “well-regarded Basoruns like Magaji, Worudua, Biri, Yamba, Jambu, and Gaa who helped extend Oyo’s frontiers were of Borgu origin.” He said he “was shocked to read recently that even Ibadan, the administrative capital of Western Nigeria, was founded by a northern Nigerian of Borgu origins. Oluyole, the founder of modern Ibadan, was the scion of Bashorun Yau Yamba, who was of Borgu ancestry.” That is from Kperogi. First, Oluyole did not found Ibadan. He came and joined the founders after 1830. Read Toyin Falola’s ‘Ibadan: Foundation, Growth and Change: 1830-1960. Available historical facts say that Oluyole’s father was a noble man in Old Oyo (Oyo Ile) called Olukuoye Ajala while his mother was a daughter of Alaafin Abiodun. Iwe Itan Ibadan published in 1911 by I. B. Akinyele, who later became an Olubadan, gives some clarity on this. Akinwumi Ogundiran’s ‘The Yoruba: A New History’ published in 2020 says so too on page 395.

Professor Kperogi’s claim is more intriguing when he described the six Basorun he listed as Bariba. History says until 1783, Borgu, the country of the Bariba, was under the rule of Oyo Ile. That fact is in grand old I. A. Akinjogbin’s 1963 PhD thesis titled: ‘Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708-1818’. This fact he reinforces in his ‘The Oyo Empire in The 18th Century’ published in 1966, on page 453. History, however, agrees that there is a long tradition of interaction between Oyo and Borgu people – an Alaafin actually lived and died in exile in Borgu after Oyo Ile was sacked by the Nupe. But it is also true that that friendship ended in fracas and fiasco. Read Robert Smith’s ‘Alaafin in Exile’, 1965: page 61-63. The hostility was very evident when Richard and John Lander visited Borgu in around 1830. The explorers were quoted by Robin Hallet (1965:112) as noting that: “perhaps no two people in the universe residing so near each other, differ more widely in their habits and customs, and even in their natures, than the natives of Yariiba (Yoruba) and Borgoo (Borgu). The former are perpetually engaged in trading with each other from town to town; the latter never quit their towns except in case of war, or when engaged in predatory excursions…”

So, I find Kperogi’s claim of a succession of non-Yoruba Basorun of Oyo, Alaafin’s second-in-command, quite worthy of scientific interrogation by historians.

Kperogi mentioned a Basorun Worubia, whom, because of his name, he took to be Bariba. Well, ‘Woru’ exists as a Yoruba name among the Sabe Yoruba community. The Sabe Yoruba are in Benin Republic surrounded by Borgu people. Olasope Oyelaran’s ‘Orita Borgu: The Yoruba and the Baatonu down the Ages’ (2018) says so on page 245. Yau Yamba (Yamba bi Ekun), mentioned variously by Kperogi, is described by Samuel Johnson in his ‘The History of the Yorubas’ (page 174) as “one of the most famous men in Yoruba history.” Yamba is said to be Basorun Gaa’s father (or ancestor). This presupposes that he was Basorun long before 1754 when Gaa became Basorun. This fact also means that both of them were Basorun at a time the Borgu country was a vassal of Old Oyo. So, at what point did a subject (before 1783) and an enemy or rival (post 1783) become so involved and indispensable that they started supplying candidates for Oyo Empire’s prime ministership?

A foremost authority on Yoruba history, Professor Banji Akintoye wrote in his ‘A History of the Yoruba People’ published in 2010 that “most of the greatest warriors of Yoruba history were produced by Oyo Empire.” He proceeded to name one of such warriors as “Iba Magaji, who served both Obalokun and Ajagbo as Basorun and commanded the earliest campaigns that conquered most of Nupe and Bariba countries.” So, would a Bariba lead outsiders to conquer his own people? Akintoye named a Basorun Akindein – his name is clearly Yoruba. He mentioned another – “the Basorun under the Alaafin Ojigi, the personage known to history by the nickname Yau Yamba…” (see page 242). It is possible that some of the Basorun of Oyo listed by Kperogi as Borgu (Bariba) merely used aliases possibly derived from the interactions they had with their non-Yoruba neighbours. As suggested by Akintoye, their real Oyo-Yoruba names may have been lost to history.

There is no agreement on this – even among well established Yoruba historians. Kperogi’s claim on the Basoruns appear to draw its roots from Akinwumi Ogundiran’s ‘The Yoruba: A New History’, cited earlier. Ogundiran wrote on what he called “the revitalized Oyo polity after 1570” which “bore the strong marks of power sharing” between the Oyo (Yoruba) on the one hand and the Bariba, Nupe, Songhai, Mossi, and others who “adopted the Oyo political identity and by extension became members of the Yoruba community of practice” (page 191). Ogundiran agreed that in post 1570 Oyo, Bariba families started controlling the office of Basorun, and the Nupe families, the Alapinni, head of the egungun cult. Ogundiran did not cite any authority to back this claim.

Kperogi also wrote that the Bariba (Baatonu) founded many Yoruba towns in present Oyo State. History says that what some Yorubanised Baribas founded were ruling dynasties, not towns and kingdoms. Kperogi mentioned Ogbomoso. There are three versions of the tradition of origin of that town. None of them says that Soun Ogunlola, the Bariba-Yoruba man, founded Ogbomoso. Ogunlola met people at that military post although his valour later gave the name ‘Ogbomoso’ to the settlement. Read Babatunde Agiri’s ‘When was Ogbomoso Founded’ published by the Transafrican Journal of History in 1976. You can also read N.D. Oyerinde’s ‘Iwe Itan Ogbomoso’ published in 1934.

I read something from Kperogi about “Kishi, another major town in Oyo State” being “founded by a Borgu prince by the name of Kilishi Yeruma.” Well, I have an eighty-something-year-old friend, a very literate man, who hails from Kishi. We say here that no one can carry a baby better than its mother. And, so, to my octogenarian friend I went in search of the truth in the history of Kishi. He disagreed with Kperogi; he gave to me what he knew to be the truth of that aspect of his people’s history. This is how he put it:

“As I sought to say sometime ago about Kishi, Kilishi met people already living in our town at Ilé Ògoríodó and his people exclaimed: “So, people are hiding here—Kìrìsí!” Kishi (Kisi) is thus derived from Kirisi. That is the origin of the name of the town. Otherwise, if the town was founded by Ìbàrùbá how come our language is pure Yoruba and so is our mode of dressing and our culture and not the way of the Ìbàrùbá? The Ìbàrùbá ethnic group still inhabit their own land in Borgu…?” So, how did the Borgu man, Kilishi Yeruma come to start the dynasty ruling Kishi till tomorrow? My aged friend told me: “What we were told as children by our great and grand parents was that Kilishi was a brave and valiant warrior. The people lived in an era of wars. He was, therefore, asked to lead them in their frequent wars. That was how the lineage of Kishi kings came from them, and instead of referring to the king as Oba, he is called Iba. So we have Iba of Kishi and not Oba of Kishi. Along the line, one of the Ibas married one of the daughters of an Alaafin called Àdàsóbo. From then the Iba became entitled to wearing a crown bestowed by the Alaafin.

“When Igboho was under siege, and similarly Shaki, by the Fulanis in the course of Ilorin’s expansionism, it was Kishi that went to the rescue of the two towns. The song that arose from the Kishi warding off the invaders went as follows:
Tí kò bá sí Lágbùlú,
Shakí a run, Ìgbòho a bàjé;
Shakí a run, Ìgbòho a bàjé!

“Lagbulu was Kishi’s lead warrior. Now, you would want to ask why that song was not rendered in Bariba if truly Kishi is a Bariba town? Even a Bariba-Yoruba won’t sing such deep lyrics.

“Kìshí became the fortress protecting Yorùbá land in the North-Western part of Yorùbáland. When Òyó’lé disintegrated, an arm of the Aláàfin Ruling House moved to Kìshí and they were given abode and land to cultivate onions,àlùbósà eléwé! Their compound is called Ilé Alálùbósà (the house in which onion is cultivated and grown). Indeed, by our own history, it was the reluctance of the Òyómèsì to pick one of the princes from Kishi to succeed Alaafin Atiba that led to the rebellion of Kúrúnmi at Ìjàyè more known as Ìjàyè War. After the war, a majority of the fighters from Kishi decided to settle at Ibadan. Their wives started Ojà-Iba (Ojà’ba). Many people including historians thought and believed Ojà’ba was founded by or named after Basorun Olúyòlé. What made the market to be markedly different was that it was a night market that would open by say 7pm and close by 10pm.

“The Kishi people in Ibadan founded Màpó – named after Òkè Màpó (Iya Mapo) back home in Kishi. Molete is the other area of Ibadan where fighters of Kishi descent who participated in the Ìjàyè war settled. The Molete people in Ibadan are from Molete area in Kishi. The point I am getting at, therefore, is that Farooq Kperogi got only the popular angle of the stories, not the actual, true angle.”

So, if the Nigerian government will reintroduce history as a subject in primary and secondary schools in 2025, whose history will that be? Who will write it? Even among the vociferous Yoruba, there is no consensus on what Yoruba history is. Samuel Johnson’s monumental ‘The History of the Yorubas’, to some critics, is Oyo-centric.

But then, “why does history matter?” A Polish dipomat asked himself that question in 2004. The man provided the answer; he said “knowledge about the past can, and should, influence the course of current and future developments” while “negligence of the wisdom that history offers to us can lead to fateful consequences.” But, there are dire consequences for saying certain truths in Nigeria. Because of such consequences, we can only teach compromised facts as history. And what purpose will that serve? I think we should just continue doing what we are doing – hiding the fire even when we do not know what to do with the smoke.

News

OPINION: Peter Obi And The Genius Of Yahoo Yahoo

Published

48 minutes ago

October 28, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

Some Nigerians said it was wrong for Mr. Peter Obi to have labelled Yahoo Boys geniuses. I heard them and wondered whether ‘genius’ now has a new meaning apart from what the dictionary says it is.

The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2007), on page 1091, defines genius as: “Natural ability or tendency, attributes which fit a person or particular activity. Natural aptitude, talent, or inclination for, to (something).”

Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, in the post titled: “Our Youths Need Redirection”, that he shared on his verified X handle, after a conference he addressed in Onitsha, Anambra State, said that “some of our so-called Yahoo boys are geniuses who need redirection, not condemnation.”

He did not stop there. He posited further by saying that the “creativity and courage” of the Yahoo Boys, “if properly guided, can drive innovation and national development. Our challenge is to channel their energy from deception to productive enterprise. I also stressed that the reckless pursuit of money destroys both character and community. Leadership must lead by example, for a nation that rewards dishonesty cannot build integrity. I urged our youths to rediscover the dignity of labour and embrace hard work and innovation. Nations are built not by miracles but by men and women who think, work, and build.”

Pray, what do the Yahoo Boys display if not aptitude? How do they succeed in fleecing people of their hard-earned money if not that the Yahoo Boys are naturally gifted and their victims stupid or greedy, or a combination of both? How does a 17-year-old boy convince a 60-year-old man to part with his money on the promise that the old man would be given an oil block? Who swindles like that if not a genius? And we have these geniuses in our homes as children, wards and relations. The attention we pay to them matters.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch at an old friend’s house at Ido Ekiti. His wife, also a friend, was generous with the pounded yam she served. We were almost through when their 15-year-old daughter came in with two of her friends.

The girls greeted us and made for their section of the house when my friend called his daughter back. He complained that he was having an issue with his android phone and asked her to check it. The girl asked what the issue was, and the father explained. What followed almost ruined our lunch.

Taking the phone from the father, the young girl said: “But I taught you how to fix this problem before, Daddy. I know you will soon call me again because of this.” It was not what she said that was the problem. The what-else-do-you-think-that-makes-you-to-forget manner she said it, was the issue. If an adult were to say those words, he would have simply called my friend an alakogbagbe (teach-and-forget soul)!

The girl simply punched some buttons and returned the phone to the father. “I have done it”, she said, giggling. The father, surprised, asked how, since he had locked his phone. The girl, laughing, simply said: “I know your password, even mummy’s and Uncle Tunji’s password.” She dropped the phone and dashed inside to join her friends.

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We simply exchanged glances and continued with our lunch. But I could feel the tension. My friend’s wife was particularly embarrassed, but I felt nothing. Only God understands the ways of this generation.

While seeing me off, I decided to douse the tension, or minimise the reprimand I knew would follow once I departed. I quipped: “That’s a brilliant girl.” My friend responded: “Yes, but she can be rude. I have told her to watch how she talks.” I stopped and asked if the girl was rude or simply wondered why an adult should forget things easily. The wife joined the husband and affirmed that the girl was rude.

Then I said to the two of them: “I think I know what you people should do. Stop paying her school fees.” “Ha!” They both exclaimed, and I added: “Yes nao, sebi you said she is rude.” We all laughed at the joke, and I left.

My friend’s daughter will be 16 years old in June next year. But I was told that there is nothing she can’t design using computer applications! We have children like her in our homes; restless, brilliant, naturally impatient with perceived docility and outspoken to the point of seeming ‘rude’! What we do with them makes all the difference.

Teckworm, an online technology news and media company, on September 19, 2018, published an article: “Meet these 5 child hackers who could become top cyber security researchers.” The article, written by Maya Kamath, demonstrates how the society could guide negative prodigies into becoming useful members of the society especially in the field of Cybersecurity that is experiencing a shortfall of skilled professionals.

The first of the youngsters is Reuben Paul, a nine-year-old boy, and a third grader in Harmony School of Science, Austin, Texas, USA, who at a .B-Sides security conference, demonstrated how in a matter of minutes, hackers can easily steal all the important data from any Android smartphone including contact details, call logs and messages. The kid warned: “If a child can do it then a regular hacker can do it … so I just want everybody to be aware [and to] be more careful when you download games and stuff like that.” He went ahead to establish the Prudent Games and became the CEO at age nine!

Another kid is Betsy Davies, a seven-year-old British girl, who was able to hack the public Wi-Fi network following a short video tutorial. After 10 minutes, the article says: “Surprisingly, Betsy was able to hack the open Wi-Fi and steal the traffic of the volunteer in just 10 minutes and 54 seconds. Betsy managed this by setting up a Rogue Access Point which is normally used by hackers to carry out the “Man in the Middle” (MiTM) attack on the overly trusting web surfers to sniff web traffic.

The piece further mentions Kristoffer Von Hassel, a five-year-old kid hacker, the piece further states, “exposed the Xbox password flaw for which he has been officially added to the list of Microsoft’s recognized security researchers. We can expect a five-year-old kid to play the Microsoft Xbox Game as well as know the operating system. However, just imagine if a five-year-old kid starts finding a security vulnerability in the system. It just seems impossible; however, little Kristoffer Von Hassel discovered a back door into one of the most popular gaming systems and that is the Xbox Game.”

Another wonder kid identified only as “An Unnamed Canadian”, said to be 12 years old and a fifth grader, “launched a series of Denial-of-Service (DoS), spoofing and even defacement attacks against the Canadian government websites in support of the Quebec student protests. It seems the young protester even passed the data which was stolen from the government websites to the Anonymous group in exchange for video games. The young hacker was from Montreal and also pleaded guilty for being responsible for the shut down of a number of government sites including the Quebec Institute of Public Health and the Chilean government.”

The last of the quintet is a 10-year-old security researcher, who goes by the pseudonym ‘CyFi. According to the article, “The young Californian school girl first discovered the flaw when “she started to get bored” with the pace of farm style games. The first DefCon Kids at DefCon 19 was held in August 2011, where CyFi presented her findings on the zero-day flaw in the games on the iOS and Android devices which was confirmed to be of a new class of vulnerability by experts. While speaking to CNET, CyFi said: “It was hard to make progress in the game, because it took so long for things to grow. So, I thought, ‘Why don’t I just change the time?’”

CyFi’s, whose “real identity is being protected… was already a Girl Scout and a state ranked downhill skier. In addition, the little girl was already an artist who gave a spontaneous 10-minute speech in front of a thousand people at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.”

The Nigerian society also has more than enough shares of those young and brilliant children. What we do with them as a people is what makes the difference. While more developed societies harness the potential of such youngsters and turn them into useful members of the community, often brand and blacklist them here, calling them derogatory names instead of seeking ways to change their orientation.

In our cities and towns, we see them everyday. Young boys in their teens and early twenties driving flashy cars. A friend, who teaches in one of the state-owned universities, once told me how young boys in his school created a massive car park for themselves. He said that the situation became embarrassing such that the university authorities had to ban students from driving their cars within the campus. When I asked if that measure had stopped other students from buying their own cars, my friend answered in the negative. So, what is the effect of the ban?

Who are these super-rich kids behind the wheels of exotic cars that we see in our neighbourhoods? How did they get the money? What do they do for a living? On February 8, 2022, I published a piece titled: “The Yahoo in us all: Whose conscience have we not scammed.” In that piece, I submitted that “The issue of Yahoo Boys, Yahoo Plus and HK, are not social problems that just hit us all suddenly. No. The Nigerian society gradually moved into this present level of moral decadence, which has reached a bestial level, where sucklings now kill to make money.”

Regrettably, nothing in the submissions above has changed today! Rather, we have moved from a bad situation to an even worse one, and the worst may still be ahead. The moral decadence in our society today has become so pervasive that no segment of the society is spared. Ironically, the leaders we should look up to for direction are also complicit.

A community led certificate forgers, drug barons, ex-convicts, corrupt politicians and adults without childhood playmates cannot question the moral decadence of the youths! The Yahoo Boys of our society today are products of failed parentage. While the influence of peer groups bears some responsibility, the erosion of family values carries the greatest share of the blame.

More importantly, society’s response to the activities of these Yahoo Boys and girls will, no doubt, go a long way in transforming some of them into good citizens. This, I believe, is what Peter Obi meant when he said that “some of our so-called Yahoo boys are geniuses who need redirection, not condemnation.”

What Obi is saying is: Check these guys out, study them, understand their modus operandi and see how they can be re-oriented to channel those talents to positive ideas that will make them good and acceptable members of the society. That is exactly what a sane society does. The five kids mentioned by the Techworm are clear examples of how a negative path can be redirected.

When, for instance, Kristoffer’s parents discovered that their child could play games above his age on the Xbox Games platform, they reported their finding to Microsoft. The company investigated, discovered the flaws in the system that allowed a five-year-old to access those games and went ahead to fix the problem.

Then, Microsoft rewarded Kristoffer with $50, four games and a year subscription to Xbox Live from Microsoft! It went ahead to include “Kristoffer’s name in the list of recognised security researchers and Kristoffer now has his own Wikipedia page.” This, to me, is Obi’s message to the Nigerian society on the menace of Yahoo Boys.

This, again, I think Seye Oladejo, the Lagos State spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC), should see rather than his labelling Obi’s statement as “morally reprehensible”, and capable of encouraging “moral indiscipline.”

I read Oladejo’s reaction, and I wondered if he ever shared the piece with his superiors before he made it public. I don’t know how APC finds it convenient to talk about leadership that is rooted in “values, integrity, and moral responsibility”, when from top to bottom, the party flows with characters that are as despicable as the sight of maggots-infested faeces!

I would have been more at home with anyone asking Obi to always show the alternative routes anytime he comments on any public affair than anyone in the APC interrogating another man’s “moral compass”, as Oladejo did in his reaction. I begin to wonder if our politicians don’t look into the mirror to see the gory picture they depict before they go to the moral markets and spew sanctimony!

News

Customs Warn Nigerians Against Falling For Fake WhatsApp Auction Scams

Published

3 hours ago

October 28, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Customs Service has warned members of the public against falling victim to fraudulent WhatsApp messages advertising fake e-auction deals and “quick purchase” opportunities purportedly linked to the service.

In a statement posted on its official X handle on Tuesday, the service said it had become aware of a WhatsApp number,”234 814 732 3739”, impersonating its officers and misleading unsuspecting citizens with false claims of representing the Nigeria Customs Service.

“Please be informed that this number does NOT belong to the National Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service.

“The messages and posts circulating from this number are FAKE and fraudulent,” the statement partly read.

It added that the National Public Relations Officer, Assistant Comptroller Abdullahi Maiwada, has only one verified Facebook account, Abdullahi Aliyu Maiwada (with a blue tick), and one official WhatsApp contact, which is not the number used by the scammers.

The service clarified that “there is no ongoing auction via WhatsApp, and no individual officer is authorised to conduct e-auction on behalf of the Service through private messages.”

Urging the public to remain cautious, the statement advised Nigerians to “ignore and block such numbers,” and “not send money or personal information to anyone claiming to represent the NCS through WhatsApp or private messages.”

It further urged citizens to “report such accounts to the appropriate authorities immediately.”

For verified updates, the service encouraged members of the public to follow its official channels: Facebook (Nigeria Customs Service), Instagram (@customsng), X (@CustomsNG), YouTube (@customsng), and its official website — https://customs.gov.ng.

The service concluded, “Please stay alert, verify before you trust, and share this message widely to protect others from falling victim to these scams.”

According to The PUNCH, rampant fraudsters now clone the Nigeria Customs Service website and other official-looking platforms to swindle unsuspecting buyers.

In another report, a 59-year-old woman, Rakiyat Musa, was arraigned before the Igbosere Magistrate’s Court sitting at Tinubu, Lagos Island, for allegedly impersonating a Nigerian Customs officer and obtaining over N34, 116,000, under pretence.

Musa, who appeared before Magistrate B. I. Amos, faced a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretence, stealing, impersonation, and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.

News

Anambra, Lagos, Others Top 2025 Fiscal Performance Rankings, As C’Rivers Dropped from 5th to 30th

Published

4 hours ago

October 28, 2025

Editor

Anambra State has emerged as the best-performing state in Nigeria’s 2025 Fiscal Performance Ranking, according to BudgIT’s State of States Report, released on Tuesday.

Lagos, Kwara, Abia, and Edo followed in the top five, while Cross River suffered a major decline, dropping from fifth in 2024 to 30th in 2025.

Rivers State, a consistent top-five performer in previous years, was excluded from this year’s report due to the state of emergency declared earlier in the year, which prevented the release of audited data.

In a statement shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, BudgIT described this year’s edition—titled “A Decade of Subnational Fiscal Analysis: Growth, Decline and Middling Performance”—as a milestone marking 10 years of tracking fiscal sustainability and governance transparency across Nigeria’s 36 states.

BudgIT highlighted the key movements in the 2025 rankings.

“Anambra State rose from second to first position, securing the title of the best-performing state in the federation, while Lagos maintained its second place for the second consecutive year.

“Kwara climbed from fourth to third, Edo entered the top five after consistently ranking within the top ten over the last four editions, and Abia, which had never previously featured in the top 10, now ranks fourth,” the organisation said.

Other notable movements include Akwa Ibom, which surged 17 places from 27th to 10th, and Zamfara, which moved up nine places from 26th to 17th.

At the lower end of the rankings, Imo, Kogi, Jigawa, Benue, and Yobe occupy the bottom positions.

The report retained five key metrics to rank all 35 states: Index A – a state’s ability to meet operating expenses using only Internally Generated Revenue (IGR); Index A1 – year-on-year IGR growth; Index B – capacity to cover all expenses and loan obligations using total revenue without borrowing; Index C – debt sustainability based on foreign debt as % of total debt, total debt as % of revenue, debt service as % of revenue, and personnel cost as % of revenue; and Index D – prioritisation of capital expenditure over recurrent spending.

On revenue performance, BudgIT noted major shifts in IGR.

“While Rivers (121.26%) and Lagos (118.39%) were the only two states with sufficient IGR to cover their operating expenses in 2024, the absence of Rivers from this year’s analysis has reshaped this dynamic.

“Lagos remains a returning champion with 120.87%, while Enugu now leads with an impressive 146.68% IGR-to-operating expense ratio,” the report said.

Only five states—Abia, Anambra, Kwara, Ogun, and Edo—generated enough IGR to cover at least 50% of their operating expenses, compared with six in 2024. Fourteen states now require more than five times their IGR to cover costs, up from six in 2024, underscoring persistent challenges.

In capital expenditure, Abia led with 77.05% of its total expenditure devoted to capital projects, followed by Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Taraba, each allocating over 70%.

Overall, 24 states spent at least half of their budgets on capital projects, while Bauchi, Ekiti, Delta, Benue, Oyo, and Ogun devoted more than 60% to personnel and overhead costs.

Total recurrent revenue for all 35 states grew from N6.6 trillion in 2022 to N8.66 trillion in 2023 and N14.4 trillion in 2024—a 66.28% increase, far surpassing the 28.95% rise between 2022 and 2023.

Lagos accounted for 13.42% (N1.93 trillion) of total revenue in 2024. Gross FAAC transfers increased by 110.74%, reaching N11.38 trillion, with states like Oyo (785.79%), Delta (708.36%), and Anambra (640.98%) recording over 600% growth between 2015 and 2024. Despite these gains, 28 states relied on FAAC for at least 55% of total revenue.

Subnational debt also saw a change. Total debt rose modestly from N9.89 trillion in 2023 to N10.57 trillion in 2024, a 6.8% increase. The top five debtor states—Lagos, Kaduna, Edo, Ogun, and Bauchi—accounted for 50.32% of total debt.

Encouragingly, 31 states reduced domestic debt by at least N10 billion, while foreign debt fell by over $200 million.

On long-term trends, BudgIT said, “Over the past decade, the State of States has evolved into Nigeria’s most authoritative subnational fiscal analysis. This 10th edition not only reflects the story of growth and imbalance but also underscores the urgent need for reform.”

“Fiscal sustainability requires that states look inward, improving revenue systems, cutting waste, and prioritising infrastructure and human development investments that deliver long-term value,” said Vahyala Kwaga, Group Head of Research.

The report also highlighted uneven social spending. In education, only 66.9% of the budgeted N2.41 trillion was spent. Nine states—Edo, Delta, Katsina, Rivers, Yobe, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Bauchi, and Osun—exceeded 80% of their budgeted allocations, with Edo, Delta, and Katsina surpassing 100%. Average per capita spending remained low at N6,981, with no state exceeding N20,000 per capita and only eight states above N10,000.

In health, the states budgeted N1.32 trillion but expended N816.64 billion, achieving 61.9% implementation. Seven states—Yobe, Gombe, Ekiti, Lagos, Edo, Delta, and Bauchi—spent over 80% of their health budgets, with Yobe leading at 98.2%. Average per capita spending was N3,483, with only a few states exceeding N5,000, highlighting gaps in service delivery relative to education.