26th August 2025, NewsOrient, Opinion, Column, News, Governance And Development
By John Chukwu Anyim

1. THE NEW REALITY OF NIGERIAN CHILDHOOD

Nigeria is fast sinking into a dangerous abyss where classrooms are being deserted and replaced with crime and exploitation. Once symbols of hope, schools are now losing their grip on the youth. Children and teenagers, faced with crushing poverty and disillusionment, are being driven into Yahoo Yahoo (internet fraud) and internet prostitution. What was once abnormal has become the new normal.

2. POVERTY DRIVES THE SHIFT

Imagine a 14-year-old boy in Ajegunle, Lagos, who has not been to school in two years because his widowed mother cannot pay fees. To keep food on the table, he joins older boys in the neighborhood who teach him how to scam foreigners online. For him, fraud becomes the alternative classroom. This is no isolated case; it is a reality replicated across Nigeria’s slums and ghettos.

3. THE GLAMOURIZATION OF FRAUD

Cybercrime has moved from the shadows to the spotlight. Music videos, social media influencers, and even everyday conversations glamorize the “Yahoo lifestyle”, fast cars, designer clothes, and endless parties. For young boys in Benin City or Abeokuta, this is more attractive than the broken chalkboards of underfunded schools. Fraud is no longer seen as a crime; it is seen as hustle.

4. THE RISE OF INTERNET PROSTITUTION

For young girls, the pathway is equally tragic. Consider Blessing, a 16-year-old in Port Harcourt, who was forced to drop out of secondary school because her parents could not afford WAEC registration. Today, she spends her nights on hookup apps, selling her body to survive. In Abuja, teenagers parade hotels, contacted through Telegram or WhatsApp. What began as desperation for school fees becomes a permanent descent into internet prostitution.

5. THE COLLAPSE OF MORAL VALUES

Parents, battered by poverty, sometimes turn a blind eye to the source of their children’s sudden wealth. A father in Ibadan pretends not to ask how his son bought a smartphone, as long as he contributes to feeding the family. A mother in Warri tolerates her daughter’s “runs” because the money pays for siblings’ upkeep. When families begin to normalize crime as survival, the moral fabric of society collapses.

6. THE GLOBAL DAMAGE TO NIGERIA

The consequences extend beyond families. Nigeria’s reputation abroad is scarred. Universities in Europe and America view Nigerian students with suspicion, Businesses lose opportunities because of fraud scandals tied to Nigerians. Meanwhile, the rise of internet prostitution exposes the country’s young girls to trafficking syndicates who lure them into slavery under the guise of online “jobs.” The crisis is not private, it is national.

7. THE COST OF A WASTED GENERATION

Every child lost to cybercrime is a lost engineer, doctor, or innovator. Every girl trapped in internet prostitution is a broken teacher, entrepreneur, or leader. Nigeria is mortgaging its future for crumbs. Instead of grooming a generation of nation-builders, we are grooming a generation of survivors whose only skill is deception. This is a national tragedy that will haunt the economy, politics, and morality of the country for decades.

8. WHAT MUST BE DONE

The solution cannot be rhetoric. Education must be truly free, compulsory, and of quality. Government must enforce strict laws against child exploitation while creating youth employment that offers real hope. Civil society and religious leaders must stop glorifying wealth without questioning its source. Communities must rise to rebuild values, teaching children that dignity, not fraud or prostitution, is the true measure of success.

9. THE CLOCK IS TICKING

Nigeria is standing at the edge of a cliff. To ignore this crisis is to plunge deeper into chaos, crime, and moral decay. From Lagos to Kano, from Enugu to Maiduguri, children are abandoning classrooms for cybercafés of fraud and the digital sex trade. If the nation continues this way, the future will be built not on innovation and integrity but on scams and shame. A country that trades its classrooms for cybercrime and internet prostitution is not just sinking, it is drowning.

10. A CALL TO THE POLITICAL CLASS

The political class must sit up and live up to the expectations of leadership. Nigeria’s children are not statistics, they are the nation’s lifeline. Yet while politicians send their children to elite schools abroad, millions of poor children are trapped in fraud, prostitution, and hopelessness at home. This hypocrisy must end. Leaders must stop looting resources and start investing in education, jobs, and social welfare. The responsibility to save this generation rests squarely on those in power, anything less is betrayal.

-John Chukwu Anyim Is a social commentator

~ Published By NewsOrient Network

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