DCP Abba Kyari: We are all Yahoo' by Saheed Olayinka Shittu

Since the breaking, heart breaking, face breaking, reputation breaking, career breaking, fans, support, trust, myth… breaking news of DCP Abba Alhaji Kyari’s relationship and deals with Abbas ‘Hushpuppi’ Olohunwa, one particular tune has been playing in my head, it is Q’Dot Alagbe’s ‘Yawu ni gbogbo wa.’

I remembered getting upset and defensive the first time I listened carefully to the lyrics and telling the younger fellow who was playing it at our Zaria design office to change the song immediately, “when you are alone or with your clique you can listen to it, but I must warn such songs, like most of this generation’s popular entertainment, only corrupts you, what’s the message in a song that’s reinforcing it in your mind that everyone around is a crook? It will not only discourage you from trying to be honest but it will as well erase reverence or trust of everyone from your mind, you will have that automatic prejudice that everyone, well, every Nigerian, is a crook.” I had sermonized that day.

The young fellow have changed the music before I finished my admonition and had returned to his work, nodding to the new rythm and humming the new track along.

For those who are still musically antiquated like me, old school, here’s the lyrics of that track followed by a decent translation.

Yawu ni gbogbo wa lyrics.
Yahoo ni gbogbo wa, ole fe mole,
koseni to mo bi olorun, awon arabi gangan n jawa lole
won n kowo wa won n fi olopa kowa,
a fun won lobe, won feyin peran,
ole toba rimu ni barawo, baba ijebu n jemi, efon njemi,
ise olosho na self employent, olosho gbowo lo
aboki gbowo lo, lecturer gbowo lo,
eni ti ile moba ni barawo, yahoo ni gbogbo wa…

*Yawu ni gbogbo wa lyrics English translation.

”We are all frauds (Yahoo), thief policing thief.
None is clean except God, even ‘these people’ (law enforcement?) are robbing us.

They steal our money they also (police) raid us.
We offered them knife but they preferred to use teeth
Only the apprehended thief is guilty, Baba Ijebu (lottery) exploits me as does mosquitoes.
Prostitution is self employment, prostitute absconds with money, so does the labourer and the lecturer.
Only the apprehended is guilty, we are all frauds.

I had to revisit this track and look at it (take that for listen to it) in a new perspective, shockingly the track summarized everything that has been happening around the Deputy Commissioner of Police that have now come to the fore, added to new media highlights of long reported fraud cases citizens have made against the highly decorated cop, a.k.a Supercop, and reports from his hometown that indeed he is super rich and his relatives live the dream life, like billionaires, the proof isn’t far fetched, it was readily displayed by Kyari’s younger brother on the pages of the same social media application that got his older brother’s nemesis in soup, Instagram.

It may not be coincidence, it may be insider intelligence that led Q’Dot Alagbe to sing that track, after all, super creative songwriter and producer Q’Dot, notorious for glorification of fraud, prostitution, drug abuse and other crimes, and super brilliant, highly decorated police officer Abba Kyari are mutual friends to super brilliant organized fraud kingpin Hushpuppi, see the connection?

With the latest revelation, we can only imagine but will never know the volume of atrocities Abba Kyari have committed against innocent citizens, for himself, on behalf of his friends, by his boys, on his behalf and so on, it must have become normal for them to casually pick up any unfortunate ordinary Nigerian that crosses their path and administered their own type of justice on that person, in other ways, they can implicate anybody by tying evidence to them that they can’t disprove, worse still some victims will be dead with false crimes tagged to their departed souls, those who came out alive have experienced a miracle, well, in our type of system, they dare not report their misfortune.

The dangerous thing about such trusted people is the ease with which they will throw cases of violation of other citizens under the carpet, the support they will get against victims and the immaculate image they portray in public, in Nigeria, anything you bring up against such a person will be seen as blackmail, if the Kyari-Hushpuppi case had been mass murder and reported in a Nigerian court, it would still have been swept under the carpet with the cop only getting more promotion for it. What matters most in our extremely cronyistic and nepotistic society is loyalty, you could get away with any crime on three conditions, loyalty to your boss and cabal, not crossing their path, not touching their anointed, then you can grow without limit never mind if you are using fake credentials, you have huge criminal records or are a serial liar, actually those are useful traits for you and against you.

If Abba Alhaji Kyari had to start singing like Hushpuppi, which is very unlikely, to list his own deals and partners, it will be like a rain of faeces in the media, we will only hear the unthinkable and unbelievable.

Back to Q’Dot’s song, it is now proven that we are all ‘Yahoo’, no, don’t get upset yet, I am still with you, I am still of the opinion that majority of Nigerians are honest, in fact, we keep having news of frauds than some more notorious countries because we will rather report and expose crime stories than cover up, kudos to the media for that, but unfortunately, there’s so much of the proceeds of frauds in circulation that it keeps touching most people, you could hardly befriend people or transact businesses without meeting, benefiting, getting involved with, a fraud, more over, the promotion and glorification of easy and quick wealth is overwhelming, the dishonest shames the honest in a sick role invertion, it is so sickening.

May the ‘YAWU’ among us and by us continue to drop and may we have generations that values honesty and integrity ever after.

God bless Nigeria.

Saheed Olayinka Shittu is the CEO of Majestic Edifice Architects and a public affairs commentator. He can be reached on 08066450045, saheedolayinkas@gmail.com.