EFCC: How Underage Boys Open Accounts, Get Drivers’ License to Perpetrate Fraud

•Edo comes after Lagos in terms of conviction

Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),has revealed how underage boys, who are into internet fraud popularly called yahoo-yahoo, did age declaration to enable them open bank accounts and get driver’s licenses in order to expend their proceeds from the crimes.

The agency also revealed that Edo State was second to Lagos in terms of convictions despite the small size of the state.

The anti-crime agency, however, vowed to go after government agencies and individuals issuing the papers for the fraudulent declarations.

The Zonal Director of the EFCC in charge of Edo, Delta and Ondo States, Effa Okim, stated this in Benin City while on a courtesy visit to the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) led by Festus Alenkhe.

Okim said parents who normally claimed that their children were underage when convicted would also go in for it for complicity in the forgery of documents.

“Crime, what we call yahoo-yahoo is visible in our streets. When you walk on our streets, when you visit our hotels per second you see these boys and it is so visible and disturbing. The statistics that we have is that Edo is second to Lagos in terms of conviction.

“This calls for concern because in terms of size, Edo is not but look at the slant on the level of convictions, it is not a good reputation and for me, Edo is too great in the Nigerian history to be reduced to that level in terms of criminality.

“When you hear that a 12-year-old boy has been sent to jail, that in law he is not supposed to go because he is underage. But it happens here often because they go and agree with some authorities and do age declaration stating that they are eighteen just to enable them to open account and put their criminal structures in place and at the end when they are arrested, their father will come and say their children are underage.

“We are asking them where were you when he got his driver’s license, where were you when your underage son opened an account because in the Nigerian law an underage cannot open an account, where were you when your son was spending money in an irresponsible manner?” he said.

Okim further said the commission, in line with its mandate and vision, was ready to partner the media “to reduce the visibility of crime on our streets”

On his part, Alenkhe urged the new zonal director to maintain an open door policy to always make information available to journalists.