Pastor David Ibiyeomie, founder of Salvation Ministries in Port Harcourt, used a Sunday sermon to reject offerings from internet fraudsters in his congregation, telling them plainly to take their money elsewhere. “In this church, if you’re a Yahoo, you will go to another church and give your offering. I don’t care how much you have,” he said.
To explain why he was taking such a hard line, Ibiyeomie recounted the story of a university professor and electrical engineer, one of his site consultants, who lost every kobo in his savings to internet fraudsters and later collapsed and died. “Every money he saved as a professor, all his savings, was taken,” the pastor said, adding that people have lost their lives because of Yahoo Yahoo, the Nigerian slang term for internet fraud. He questioned why some fraudsters attend church without any sign of remorse despite living off stolen money, insisting that no matter how it is justified, “Yahoo is stealing.”
Religious and Public Figures Have Long Pushed Back Against Yahoo Culture
Ibiyeomie is not the first prominent Nigerian to publicly confront internet fraud from the pulpit or podium. Nigerian clergy have repeatedly used sermons to warn congregants against benefiting from fraud money, with some pastors in the past reportedly refusing tithes and offerings suspected to come from fraudulent sources, reflecting a recurring tension between churches’ need for donations and concerns about where that money comes from.
Beyond religious circles, Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman has separately warned that the country’s reputation for internet fraud, or “Yahoo Yahoo,” continues to hinder foreign investment, discouraging international businesses from trusting Nigerian partners and slowing legitimate economic opportunities for the country.
Nigeria’s Internet Fraud Has a Documented Death Toll
Ibiyeomie’s account of the professor is not an isolated tragedy. In Michigan, two Nigerian brothers were sentenced to over 17 years each in a federal court after a sextortion scheme they ran led to the suicide of 17-year-old Jordan DeMay, who took his own life after being unable to pay $1,000 the men demanded to stop them from releasing explicit images they had tricked him into sending. In a separate case, a Nigerian man was sentenced to five years in prison for laundering money in a sextortion scheme that led a 20-year-old Pennsylvania college student, Jack Sullivan, to die by suicide by walking in front of a train. The FBI has said sextortion cases, many linked to networks describing themselves as Yahoo Boys, rose sharply in recent years, with over 54,000 cases reported in a single year, though authorities believe the real number is higher since many victims feel too ashamed to report it.
Romance scam victims have also died by suicide after losing everything, with one industry report noting that victims left emotionally and financially devastated by Nigerian-linked online dating scams have, in some extreme cases, taken their own lives.
Beyond individual tragedies, Nigeria’s EFCC chairman has separately warned that the country’s reputation for internet fraud continues to hinder foreign investment, discouraging international businesses from trusting Nigerian partners and slowing legitimate economic opportunities for the country.
Why Yahoo Fraud Persists, and the Damage It Leaves Behind
Experts and officials have repeatedly linked the persistence of internet fraud in Nigeria to economic hardship, unemployment and the desire for quick wealth among young people, though Ibiyeomie stressed in his sermon that hardship does not excuse defrauding others. The professor’s case shows how devastating the human cost can be: victims can lose entire life savings built over decades of work, sometimes with fatal consequences from the shock and stress of the loss.
Beyond individual victims, Yahoo fraud carries a heavy national cost. It has become one of the main reasons Nigeria carries a global reputation for online scams, a stigma that affects law-abiding Nigerians trying to do legitimate business, travel, or open bank accounts abroad. As the EFCC has pointed out, this reputation actively discourages foreign investors from trusting Nigerian businesses and partners, which slows economic growth and job creation for the very young people who might otherwise be pushed toward fraud out of desperation. The involvement of churches in this story also raises uncomfortable questions about how easily proceeds of fraud can be laundered through religious institutions if congregations don’t ask where donations come from.
What Could Help Curb Internet Fraud in Nigeria
Public figures like Ibiyeomie speaking out from platforms with wide reach, including churches, can help shift social attitudes that sometimes glamorize Yahoo fraud as a legitimate hustle rather than a crime with real victims. Beyond moral appeals, tackling the root causes, such as youth unemployment and limited access to legitimate income opportunities, remains central to reducing the pressure that pushes some young Nigerians toward fraud in the first place.
Stronger due diligence by religious and community institutions around large or suspicious donations could also help cut off one of the ways fraud proceeds get absorbed into the wider economy without scrutiny. Continued law enforcement action by agencies like the EFCC, combined with public awareness campaigns about how fraud devastates real victims, as Ibiyeomie’s story about the professor illustrates, can also help reinforce that these are not victimless crimes.
Why This Story Deserves More Than a Passing Reaction
We think it’s significant that a message like this came from the pulpit of one of Nigeria’s most prominent churches, reaching thousands of worshippers directly. Too often, conversations about Yahoo fraud focus only on the fraudsters getting rich, while the professor in this story is a reminder of the real people on the other end of those transactions, losing everything they worked their whole lives to build. We believe stories like this deserve to be told and retold, not to shame any one community, but to push back against the idea that fraud is a harmless shortcut to wealth. If more public figures with Ibiyeomie’s reach speak this plainly, it might do more to change attitudes than any government campaign alone.
Published by Ejoh Caleb
