An Irony

_{Photo by Max Kleinen}

Today's contest from the Hive Learners community is one that requires experience and therefore one I should not be writing about, seeing how I have little to no experience to the night life over here, all thanks to me always being indoor before 8pm-9pm everyday.

So I was going to not write anything on today's topic but then my brain did that thing where it works without me pushing the command button and now I feel like I have something to say.

You see, back in the days when fraud wasn't as popular as it is today, night life in almost anywhere in the country was scary because you'd have guys in various dark corners waiting for you to walk by just so they could rob you and probably do worse if you resist. I remember in my previous area (when we lived at the ghetto), one lady had been stabbed to death just because she had refused to hand her bag over to the armed robber who tried robbing her.

These days, we barely hear about such things and it's all thanks to one thing and trust me when I say it's something I'm not proud of, internet fraud (popularly known as yahoo yahoo).

Back in the day, the only people who engaged in Internet fraud were big men because back then a lot of people didn't have access to these informations that helped them scam unsuspecting victims online, so while the big matured men were into fraud, the youths were mostly just stealing from other people.

When I first gained admission into the university, there had been this one particular guy who was terrorising us here. Whenever he was broke (which was almost every night), he would come sit outside at night when all of the shops around were closed and then walk up to anyone he sees walking on the street and just take what they have on them. If you refused to give it to him, he would wait until some other time and then approach you with a few of his friends, this time they won't be asking, they would take everything you have on you, including your phone and money.

He did that continously for more than a year and no one could report or do anything to him because he was an indigene and over here, that sort of gave him a cover. So even if you arrested him with the police, he would be out in no time and then you would have a target on your back for a long long time.

So instead of reporting him to the authorities, everyone just ignored and instead just tried giving him whatever he asked for which was mostly just cash.
He and his crew terrorised the street night life for more than a year and then all of a sudden they all stopped.

I soon found out that the reason they had stopped was because they had decided that they were tired of collecting pennies when they could be making substantial amount of money by scamming foreigners online.

It's a big irony because one crime stopped another but so far, the night life here has improved and the crime rate has really gone down, all thanks to these guys choosing a different kind of crime to commit.