Abstract
In the bustling streets of Onitsha and the cyber cafés of Enugu, a new kind of hustler has emerged—young, digitally savvy, and morally ambivalent. Adorned in designer wear and fuelled by broken promises, these youth navigate the underworld of internet fraud, known popularly as Yahoo-Yahoo, not merely as criminals but as survivors of a failed state. Their actions, though condemned by law, have taken on a strange legitimacy within a society that increasingly rewards spectacle over substance, and cunning over character. This study poses a difficult but necessary question: Can fraud be understood—not justified—as a philosophical response to social injustice and economic abandonment? Drawing on the political realism of Niccolò Machiavelli, the work applies an analytic method to critically examine the Yahoo-Yahoo phenomenon in Southeastern Nigeria. The findings reveal that Yahoo-Yahoo is not merely an economic crime but a mirror reflecting Nigeria’s moral and structural failures. The youth who engage in it are not simply choosing fraud—they are rejecting a system that has long rejected them. The conclusion of this work argues that condemning Yahoo-Yahoo without addressing the societal conditions that birthed it is both philosophically dishonest and politically ineffective. While fraud must not be glorified, it must also not be misunderstood. To rebuild a just society, Nigeria must offer more than prisons—it must offer paths to dignity. The recommendation is not a call for leniency, but for reflection: a reawakening of ethical leadership, a reordering of societal values, and a reconstruction of opportunity grounded in justice, equity, and respect for human potential.