By Sunmola Olowookere
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A young chap, suspected to be a yahoo boy “apprentice” has begun to exhibit signs of psychotic disorder and his mother could no longer hide it. He had become very expressive as the disorder grew on him.
Some residents believed that it was a yahoo initiation and training gone wrong. While others claimed that the senior yahoo boys had used him for money ritual.
Apart from exhibiting strange behaviour, he had begun to tell anyone around him about some strange men that come to him forcing him to consume faeces and vomit. His parents knew that their son was in trouble.
At first, they suspected the yahoo boy of using their son and got him arrested but the case amounted to nothing as the police told them to produce evidence but they had none but their suspicions.
The boy was released. Gandi’s parents accused the police of collecting bribe and they gave the yahoo boy and his mother hell in the neighbourhood. When the harassment got too much, the yahoo boy’s mother encouraged him to move away from the neighbourhood as Gandi’s parents were threatening to unleash mayhem on him.
The Ijoka debacle where an irate mob lynched a suspected yahoo boy was still very fresh. So the boy took his mother’s advice and fled.
Gandi was left with his predicament and his parents began to hide him so that more people will not know about his illness. This is because whenever he is able to slip out, he would tell people he met of the strange men harassing him and plead to be taken to a Television station so that he can expose them.
Residents feel pity for him because prior to his predicament, he was a good boy that was well loved in our neighbourhood. Quiet and respectful, he was a different cut from his other brothers that were known to be rough and rude. They all grew up among us in a period when there still some vestiges of home discipline.
Alas Yahoo-Yahoo was to rear it’s ugly head in the next decade when these boys and others like them in their teenage. Every boy was impressed by the sight of some of their “neighbourhood egbons” wearing expensive clothings, using sophisticated phones and driving fast cars.
It went to their head like a new wine and many of these teenage boys lobbied the older males hard to be shown the way into making megabucks quickly and without stress too.
Only few were able to restrain themselves and not take the bait. Unfortunately, our boy, Gandi was not among the few lucky ones.
They all flocked to the two rich youngsters in our neighbourhood who are suspected to be yahoo boys. Many of their mothers rather than warn them to stay away from there, turned a blind eye as their sons were bringing home handouts.
Many mothers encouraged their sons to stay close to the yahoo boys and learn the ropes so that they could lift their family out of poverty. Gandi’s mother was among this group of women. They indulged their sons’ involvement with the dangerous guys rather than caution them.
However, now that nemesis had caught up with Gandi and his mother, other greedy mothers are keeping their sons close to their apron strings.
