Elozino Ogege was bright and beautiful and she should not have died when she did. But she was a Nigerian, and because she was a Nigerian she had to die bright and beautiful. For as Professor Tekenah Tamuno, emeritus professor of History and former Vice Chancellor of the Universities of Ilorin and Ibadan once wrote in his threnodic verse, “All things bright and beautiful/Nigeria kills them all”.
Elozino was, until her gruesome murder, a 300 Level student of Mass Communication at the Delta State University, Abraka. At twenty-two, she was not only full of life, she was beautiful and brainy. Her Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) was 4.70 on the 5 point scale which put her in a very comfortable First Class Honours degree category. She was a pride to her family, her department and the university. She held a great promise as a future leader in any field of human endeavour she would have chosen. She was set to go places.
Elozino did not die as a result of an accident or illness. The innocent lass was lured to a painful death by ritual making internet fraudsters called Yahoo boys. By all accounts, Elozino was a good girl, well brought up and contented. She was not a campus Aristo who would slip into the cozy Venza or Mercedes Benz 4matic of a Yahoo boy. It was also said that she would not accept suya, ice cream or barbecued fish from Yahoo boys. Elozino was looking for an off-campus accommodation when a criminally minded security man lured her into the hands of Yahoo boys. She was traded off, abducted and butchered. Her body parts were extracted in readiness for money spinning ritual and thus ended the life of a promising young woman. It was sunset at dawn. Her death is a tragedy which diminished our humanity. It speaks to how we have degenerated, erased the least modicum of value for human life and depicts the symptoms of a nation without a soul.
Elozino’s death was by no means fortuitous. It was the climax of the moral hemorrhage and acute dehumanisation to which Nigerians have subjected themselves. Everybody saw her death coming. It was not her death alone, but that of many others like her who had fallen to the knife of ritual killers. Right from the saga of Clifford Orji in Lagos to the Otokutu bridge ritual killer in Delta State, there had been too many instances of ritual killings for money. A year or two ago, the Badoo boys almost overran parts of Lagos with their murderous activities. They held sway unchallenged until the security agencies, especially the police, took on them.
When some years ago Ghana Burgers came to town, not many people bothered to condemn their nefarious acts. They were mostly young boys who hitherto didn’t have N10 (ten naira) of their own, but travelled to Ghana and returned overnight as millionaires. Words went round that they performed money rituals and in some cases used their mothers as the ritual object. Also known as G-boys, they ended up recruiting many more boys who wanted to live on the fast lane.
Their network spread across towns especially in Southern Nigeria and the phenomenon called Yahoo boys was born. Many of the Yahoo boys are in their teens. They are easily recognisable by the very expensive mobile phones they carry and with their hair style which is usually short dread and coloured. They wear expensive clothes, but appear shabby. They hang out in expensive hotels and wash their hands in the costliest of champagne. They abuse drugs, always in company of female consorts, cruise around in expensive cars and are mostly found in towns with tertiary institutions.
So many stories have been woven around them. Chief of which is their involvement in human rituals. Their victims are usually girls and they also use their parents at times, depending on what was required for the potency of the rituals. In spite of the widespread knowledge of their activities the Yahoo boys masquerade as internet fraudsters set out only to dupe foreigners especially Europeans and Americas. They boast that they were only using their brains to repatriate what the Europeans took from Nigeria. A substantial section of the society celebrated and hailed them. They had female fans in droves and the ubiquitous social media promoted them. Security agents, especially the police, pandered to their whims and caprice and provided escorts for them. These were the people that killed Elozino. Word is also out that girls have also joined the Yahoo vocation. What a boy can do a girl can do better.
At about the time the Yahoo boys were wrenching out Elozino’s life, Boko Haram was also killing over 100 soldiers of Africa’s most gallant army, the Nigerian Army in Metele in Borno State. While the soldiers were being massacred by Boko Haram, starless generals at Defence headquarters were denying the incident. It took days before the presidency responded in a most lackluster manner. Instead of being in a sober mood because of the national calamity which was what the soldiers’ massacre was, Bola Tinubu and Ruaf Aregbesola, who could not pay Osun workers’ salaries for over three years did a jig at the inauguration of the latter’s successor in Osogbo. The dance was a dance on the grave of those unfortunate soldiers. The soldiers continue to die for the country while the generals and big politicians profit from the insecurity. Festus Iyayi’s 1986 novel Heroes is all about this.
Elozino Ogege and all the soldiers who died while defending Nigeria must not die in vain. Nigerians must reinvent Nigeria so that the dastardly acts that have been consuming us will be curtailed. Nigeria is daily receding into intractable anarchy. Bestiality is supplanting our humanity. We must act now because we do not know who the next victim is.
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