The Inflation of Corruption: When Theft Became Governance

[John Onyeukwu]

The Inflation of Corruption: When Theft Became Governance

By John Onyeukwu

(Published in the Policy and Reform column of Business a.m newspaper on Monday November 3, 2025.

Corruption has not just multiplied; it has evolved. It now carries the air of legitimacy, reinforced by power, privilege, and public apathy. There was a time in Nigeria’s moral history when the theft of ₦1,000 by a clerk could end a career. Newspapers would carry the story with moral disgust, and neighbours would whisper in shame. The community saw corruption as a moral disease. Today, we have reached a point where the theft of ₦10 billion barely registers as news. Indeed, 

In the 1960s and early 1970s, corruption existed but was restrained by a communal conscience and the fear of exposure. When the Coker Commission of Inquiry in 1962 uncovered financial irregularities in the Western Region Marketing Board, the sums involved, barely tens of thousands of pounds, provoked national outrage. Even political giants like Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief S.L. Akintola were not spared public scrutiny.

The late General Murtala Mohammed’s purge of 1975–76 captured a nation’s moral pulse. Over 10,000 civil servants were dismissed for inefficiency or lack of integrity. People admired his bluntness and believed his declaration that “public office is a public trust.” In those days, the moral economy of consequence was intact: shame was a deterrent. Even the corrupt feared being exposed.  Parents discouraged their children from “fast money,” and politicians spoke, at least publicly, in the language of virtue. But that era of moral fear soon gave way to decades of audacity, as the guardians of statecraft themselves became the architects of corruption

By the mid-1980s, that moral restraint collapsed. Under military regimes, corruption lost its stigma and became a tool of governance. Political loyalty was bought with appointments, contracts, and oil allocations. The Abacha years (1993–1998) marked a grotesque turning point more than $5 billion was looted, much of it later recovered from foreign banks. Yet, decades later, some of his associates and family members still contest elections or hold public office.

When democracy returned in 1999, it did not reverse the trend; it only democratized the theft. The new political class discovered that looting under civilian cover was safer, more rewarding, and even celebrated. The late Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State, convicted for money laundering in 2005, returned to political heroism after a presidential pardon. Former governors convicted or indicted for theft, such as Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, were not only pardoned but remain respected figures in their states.

Today, the roll call of public officials accused of monumental theft reads like a “Who’s Who” of Nigerian politics. A former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, convicted of embezzling ₦7.6 billion, now sits comfortably in the Senate. Another former governor, Abdullahi Adamu, who faced corruption allegations, went on to become national chairman of a major political party. Even governors currently under investigation by the EFCC have secured ministerial appointments or are treated as political kingmakers.

Such continuity between looting and leadership reveals a tragic normalization, corruption no longer ends careers; it funds them.

Corruption in Nigeria has matured into an industry, complete with its own value chain, supply networks, and incentive systems. There are contractors who exist only on paper but collect billions for projects never executed. There are legislators who corner “constituency projects” that never leave their files. There are governors who drain local government allocations under “joint accounts.”

Recent revelations show the staggering scale: the suspended Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, allegedly diverted ₦80 billion; a former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs is accused of mismanaging ₦37 billion meant for the poor; and multiple state governments cannot account for billions in bailout funds or Paris Club refunds.

In this political economy, corruption has become an investment. A politician spends billions to win an election, knowing that control of public funds will offer returns many times over. The risks are minimal, prosecution is rare, and convictions rarer still and social disgrace is virtually non-existent. Where a railway clerk once lost his job for ₦200, today’s politician steals ₦20 billion and earns a national honour.

The logic is simple: in Nigeria, the returns on theft far exceed the cost of honesty.

No analysis of Nigeria’s corruption epidemic is complete without examining the judiciary’s complicity. What began as a noble institution for justice has too often become a marketplace for indulgence. Cases drag for years until evidence goes stale or witnesses disappear. When judgments finally arrive, they often resemble rewards for audacity rather than deterrents for wrongdoing, converting justice into theatre and punishment into negotiation

Consider the case of John Yakubu Yusuf, the former pension official who stole ₦23 billion and was fined a mere ₦750,000, less than one percent of his loot. In other cases, politically exposed persons obtain perpetual injunctions preventing their trial. The courts have effectively turned due process into a shield for impunity.

The spectacle of high-profile corruption cases collapsing under “technical grounds” has destroyed public faith in the judiciary. When a man convicted of theft walks out on appeal to contest elections, what moral signal is the system sending? The judiciary’s silence, and sometimes its sympathy, has become one of corruption’s strongest defences.

Indeed, corruption in Nigeria is no longer a crime to be hidden; it is an art to be perfected, often with judicial endorsement.

The nation has suffered a moral inversion. The thief is no longer the villain, he is the role model. The poor no longer condemn corruption, they aspire to it. The very people who suffer from bad governance often dance for those who stole from them, hoping for crumbs or patronage.

This moral confusion is the deepest wound corruption has inflicted on Nigeria. It explains why citizens defend politicians from their ethnic group, even when they are caught looting. Corruption has become the national faith and ethnic loyalty its catechism.

Philosophy teaches that virtue requires both conscience and consequence. Nigeria has lost both. The conscience has been dulled by greed, and the consequence erased by complicity.

In societies where governance works, consequence has a market price; to steal is to risk loss of freedom, property, and honour. In Nigeria, consequence has no value. The courts are pliable, enforcement agencies are politicized, and the public is weary. Thus, corruption thrives not because Nigerians are uniquely dishonest, but because dishonesty pays.

The irony is profound: the same system that impoverishes millions rewards those who break it. The average youth sees the lesson, that integrity does not feed families, but corruption buys comfort. It is little wonder that the competition today is not about who serves best, but who out-steals the last biggest thief.

From the 1970s to the present, Nigeria’s corruption story reads like an economic chart of moral depreciation. In the Murtala Mohammed era of the 1970s, cases of civil service graft involving as little as ₦5,000 or ₦50,000 provoked national outrage, sackings, and public disgrace. By the 1990s, under General Sani Abacha, treasury looting reached an audacious scale, about $5 billion yet accountability was limited to posthumous condemnation and selective recovery of stolen assets. The 2010s witnessed the fuel subsidy scam and pension frauds, with figures ranging between ₦20 and ₦80 billion. Though these triggered public anger and sensational headlines, only a handful of convictions followed. Now, in the 2020s, allegations of diversion of funds in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry and the Accountant-General’s office run into ₦80 to ₦150 billion, but the public response is muted , a mix of disbelief and fatigue. The moral of Nigeria’s corruption timeline is grim: the higher the theft, the lower the outrage.  Across five decades, the trendline of corruption resembles not progress but inflation, moral values depreciating as theft escalates.

Nigeria cannot prosecute its way out of corruption; it must rebuild its moral infrastructure. Anti-corruption agencies can chase suspects, but only culture can restore conscience.

The architecture of public finance must be redesigned, digital procurement; open budgets, real-time audit trails, and citizen oversight must replace opaque discretion. Economically, the cost-benefit of corruption must change: confiscation of assets, loss of liberty, and social disgrace should outweigh the allure of looting.

Most importantly, the judiciary must recover its moral authority. No anti-corruption crusade will succeed where the bench is complicit, timid, or transactional. The courts must cease to be the sanctuary of thieves and return to being the conscience of justice.

Nigeria must revalorize public virtue. The day we once again learn to feel ashamed of dishonesty, to treat looters not as benefactors but as betrayers, will mark the beginning of national recovery.

Until honesty becomes rewarding and dishonesty costly, the competition will continue, not over who governs best, but over who steals biggest, fastest, and without shame

John Onyeukwu
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/

 http://about.me/onyeukwu
“Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation.”
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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