When Peter Obi declared that “Yahoo boys are geniuses who need redirection, not condemnation,” it stirred mixed reactions across the nation. Yet, beneath the surface of controversy lies an inconvenient truth, that many of these young men are reflections of a failed system, not the root of its failure.
Nigeria’s streets are filled with the disappointed brilliance of a generation that was told to “be creative.” They obeyed. They studied hard, earned degrees, and waited for opportunities that never came. They built dreams without scaffolds, hoping integrity alone would feed them in a society that rewards cunning over character.
In a land where leadership kills innovation, where politics is a marketplace of deceit, and where religion preaches prosperity without productivity, it becomes easier to see how desperation is born. These so-called Yahoo boys are not inherently evil, they are casualties of neglect, survivors of a nation that mistakes rhetoric for reform.
Some of them, if you listen closely, are philosophers in disguise, frustrated engineers, disillusioned scientists, unrecognized artists, all using the fragments of their education to fight back against a structure that never valued their minds. Their rebellion, though unlawful, is often born from wounded hope rather than wickedness.
Unless one hears divine direction or carries the rare gift of endurance, the temptation to retaliate against a failed system becomes strong. Many of these young men were betrayed by religion that shouted “God will do it” while refusing to create enabling systems, by leaders who weaponized poverty, and by an education sector that rewards memorization over mastery.
They are not the disease; they are the symptom, the mirror of our moral decay and political negligence. The real crime is not that they found crooked ways to survive; it is that the system gave them no straight path to thrive.
Peter Obi was right. What this generation needs is not condemnation but reformation, leadership that can redirect talent, education that ignites invention, and governance that values productivity over patronage.
Until then, the silent war continues between a system that failed them and they that fail the system.
— Abioye Tosin Lawrence
Publisher, Oriontimes Online Newspaper
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