Discursive and Ideological Issues Foregrounding the Attitudinal Conceptualization of Yahoo Yahoo (Internet Fraud) in Selected Nigerian Comedy Skits

Cybercrime, Yahoo Yahoo in the Nigerian context, has emerged as one of the major issues the global space is currently facing, and as such has received scholarly attention, mostly from the sociological, anthropological, and legal perspectives, but very scant attention from linguistics. From alinguistic perspective, this study thus investigates the discursive-ideological issues foregrounding Nigerians’ attitudinal orientation towards Yahoo Yahoo (Internet Fraud) as portrayed in selected Nigerian comedy skits. Data comprised four purposively selected comedy skits by Lasisi Elenu and Prince Tgb downloaded from their social media pages (YouTube and TikTok). With analytical insight from van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of ideology, findings of the ideological issues foregrounding the attitudinal conceptualization of Yahoo Yahoo in the skits are: response to parental pressure, avenging the “evil” of colonization and exploitation of Africa and Africans, the construction of Yahoo Yahoo as a legitimate mentorship system, and an enterprise requiring spiritualism/fetishism for economic breakthrough. This reveals the institutionalized dimension cybercrime (Yahoo Yahoo) has assumed in Nigeria. Keywords: Cybercrime, ideology, Nigerian comedy skits, Dijk’s socio-cognitive model.