The Okoya Boys, Naira Abuse, and the law

“We should stop being ridiculous and face the real issues confronting us in this country. Some young lads in their room are doing a musical rehearsal, away from public eyes, and someone recorded it and released it in the social media, and you say that constitutes a crime? We should stop making ourselves the laughing stock of the international community. This is a huge distraction. We don’t need this now,” said a lawyer and retired banker who wishes to be anonymous.

He went further: “Those who are abusing the naira are those who go to the public space parties, social functions, etc, spraying naira, stepping on it and generally messing it up without a care in the world. How many of such real culprits have been brought to book?”

The contention here is that while the Bobrisky case being cited is a real case situation of a party scene where the actual abuse of naira unfolded before the public glare without restraint, the case here is the equivalent of eavesdropping on a discussion and attempting to use it to implicate the conversationalists.

It was also argued further that contrary to the impression being created in the social media that the boys are being preferentially treated because of their privileged background, the reality is that this is a weak or no case and investigators must have known that not much could be achieved by pushing this to the limits.

Said Fola Atolagbe, a public analyst, “this has absolutely nothing to do with these boys’ privileged background. This case is weak. It can only generate social media excitement. It can not go far. There are so many serious cases that the investigators need to devote their lean resources to than this social media distraction issue. Let’s get serious. “