If a mirror were held up to the face of the Nigerian nation today, the reflection would be uncomfortable, stark, and arguably terrifying. The recent assertion by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) that eighty percent of Nigerians would be behind bars if existing laws were strictly enforced is not merely a statistical hyperbole; it is a sociological indictment of a people at war with their own progress.
This declaration by Mr. Sakaba Ishaku, the ICPC Resident Anti-Corruption Commissioner for Kaduna State, shatters the comfortable illusion that corruption is an exclusive preserve of the political elite in Abuja or the state capitals. Instead, it posits a far more disturbing reality: that corruption has become the operating system of the Nigerian state, deeply embedded in the software of our daily interactions, from the market stall to the pulpit, and from the police checkpoint to the family dinner table.
The magnitude of this crisis cannot be overstated. When a nation’s anti-corruption agency admits that the vast majority of the citizenry is complicit in the subversion of the law, we are no longer dealing with a crime wave; we are dealing with a cultural collapse. This article seeks to dissect this monumental issue, moving beyond the usual finger-pointing at leadership to analyze the democratization of graft. We will examine the socio-economic drivers that make corruption rational for the average citizen, the devastating impact of civic sabotage on infrastructure, and, crucially, how the digitalization of government services offers a viable, long-term pathway out of this moral quagmire.
The Anatomy of the 80%: A Society of Accomplices
The figure “80 percent” suggests that for every five Nigerians you meet, four have likely run afoul of the law in a manner that warrants incarceration. This challenges the popular narrative that divides Nigeria into “corrupt leaders” and “innocent masses.” The reality, as Commissioner Ishaku noted, is that the pact of corruption benefits the “dyad”, the two parties involved in the transaction, to the detriment of the collective.
In Nigeria, corruption has successfully democratized. It is no longer the exclusive reserve of the man who steals billions from the treasury. It is found in the admission officer who demands a bribe to process a student’s file; the nurse who hoards free drugs to sell to patients; the market woman who uses rigged scales to cheat customers; and the artisan who uses inferior materials to maximize profit on a building project. These micro-aggressions against integrity, when aggregated across a population of over 200 million, create a suffocating environment where honesty is punished and cunning is rewarded.
The ICPC’s observation that there is “no massive wealth that is acquired that has no criminality behind it” strikes at the heart of our value system. It suggests that our definition of success has become unmoored from the principles of labor and value creation. We have normalized the “underpayment of labor” and the exploitation of loopholes as legitimate business strategies. The result is a society where the “Big Man” is celebrated regardless of the source of his wealth, creating a psychological feedback loop that encourages the youth to seek the shortest, often most illicit, route to affluence.
The Family Unit as the Incubator of Graft
To understand why corruption is so entrenched, we must look at its primary incubator: the family unit. In many Nigerian cultures, the pressure placed on an individual who attains a position of authority is immense. A civil servant or politician is often seen not as a servant of the state, but as a hunter sent into the forest of government to bring back game for the clan.
If an official refuses to embezzle funds or influence contracts in favor of their kin, they are often ostracized and labeled as “wicked” or “useless” by their own family members. This sociocultural pressure creates a moral hazard where the fear of social rejection outweighs the fear of legal sanction. The “Nigerian Dream” has tragically mutated into a quest to capture state resources for private and familial redistribution. Until we dismantle this expectation, until a family rejects money brought home that cannot be explained by a salary, the supply line of corrupt actors will remain infinite.
The Vandalism of Progress: A Case Study in Civic Sabotage
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this systemic rot is the hostility of the citizenry toward their own development. The revelation by the Kaduna State Commissioner for Local Government, Sadiq Mamman Legas, offers a harrowing case study. The state government claimed to have saved between N8 billion and N9 billion through rural electrification repairs, only for the beneficiary communities to turn around and vandalize the transformers, stealing the components for sale.
This phenomenon represents a profound disconnect between the state and the society. It suggests that many Nigerians view government infrastructure not as a public good to be protected, but as a “no man’s land” to be plundered. This is the tragedy of the commons writ large. When citizens destroy the very infrastructure meant to lift them out of poverty, they are engaging in a form of economic suicide. It reveals a deep-seated nihilism, a belief that the system is so broken that one might as well extract the copper wire from a transformer today rather than hope for electricity tomorrow.
This civic irresponsibility cannot be cured by building more infrastructure. If you build a golden bridge for a people who do not value it, they will dismantle it to sell the gold. The crisis is, therefore, not just one of lack of funds or lack of projects, but a lack of “community ownership.” The social contract has been severed; the people do not see the government as theirs, and thus they do not see government property as theirs.
The Wealth Illusion and the Psychology of Crime
Commissioner Ishaku’s statement that “at best you must have underpaid labor” to acquire massive wealth in Nigeria challenges the capitalist ethos that dominates our discourse. It forces us to confront the reality that much of what we celebrate as “entrepreneurship” is often arbitrage, rent-seeking, or outright exploitation.
This has a devastating effect on the psychology of the nation. When the youth see that hard work in a factory pays N50,000 a month, while “yahoo-yahoo” (cybercrime) or political thuggery pays millions, the incentive structure is warped. We are raising a generation that views the law not as a moral guardrail, but as an obstacle to be circumvented. The “hustle” culture, often glamorized in music and social media, frequently blurs the line between legitimate ambition and criminal enterprise. Reversing this requires a “chronology of the soul” similar to what we observe in genuine industrial builders, a shift from valuing the appearance of wealth to valuing the process of wealth creation.
The Digital Antidote: Technology as the New Sheriff
So, how do we fix a problem that involves 80 percent of the population? Mass incarceration is a logistical impossibility; we cannot build enough prisons to hold 160 million people. The solution, therefore, lies not just in enforcement, but in structural prevention. We must design systems that make corruption difficult, if not impossible, to perpetrate. This is where the aggressive digitalization of government services becomes the most potent weapon in our arsenal.
Corruption thrives on human discretion. The more a civil servant has the power to say “yes” or “no” to a file, the higher the opportunity for a bribe. Digitalization removes the human middleman.
1. Automated Procurement and Licensing: If the process of obtaining a passport, a driver’s license, or a building permit is fully automated, where documents are uploaded, fees are paid via a secure gateway, and approval is generated by an algorithm based on preset criteria, the opportunity for the “desk officer” to demand a bribe evaporates.
2. Blockchain for Land Registry and Transparency: Land fraud and double allocation are endemic in Nigeria. By moving land registries to a blockchain platform, we create an immutable, transparent ledger of ownership that cannot be altered by a corrupt official in the Ministry of Lands.
3. Fiscal Transparency via TSA and IPPIS: While mechanisms like the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) have had implementation challenges, the principle remains sound. We must deepen these technologies to ensure that every Naira leaving the government purse is tracked in real-time. We need to move toward “Open Contracting” standards where every government contract, the identity of the beneficial owners of the companies, and the stages of project completion are visible to the public on a digital dashboard.
Reforming the Sanctions Regime: The End of the “Slap on the Wrist”
However, technology alone is not a panacea. It must be backed by a fearsome legal framework. The ICPC Commissioner’s lament that a five-year jail term for stealing N2 billion is a “slap on the wrist” is a valid critique of our judicial leniency. In economic terms, if the benefit of the crime (N2 billion) vastly outweighs the cost (5 years in a VIP prison cell), then corruption becomes a rational investment choice.
We need legal reforms that introduce non-conviction-based asset forfeiture on a massive scale. The focus should shift from jailing the thief to recovering the loot, with interest. Furthermore, we must consider the establishment of Special Crimes Courts dedicated solely to corruption and financial crimes, with strict time limits for the conclusion of cases to prevent the eternal adjournment tactics used by high-profile defendants.
A Call for National Introspection
The ICPC’s “80 percent” verdict is a wake-up call that should echo from the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly to the bustling markets of Onitsha and Kano. It forces us to admit that the enemy is not just “them” (the leaders); the enemy is also “us.”
We are trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma where everyone is cheating because they assume everyone else is cheating. Breaking this cycle requires a collective “reset” of our national values. It requires the market woman to use a fair scale not because the police are watching, but because she understands that a dishonest market eventually collapses. It requires the community in Kaduna to protect the transformer not because the government put it there, but because it is the lifeblood of their own economic activity.
Addressing this monumental corruption requires a long-term strategy that combines the ruthlessness of law enforcement with the efficiency of digital technology and the moral persuasion of re-education. We must build a system where the “dyad” of corruption is broken by the transparency of the algorithm. We must create a society where the 20 percent who are honest are not looked upon as fools, but are empowered to become the majority.
Nigeria is a nation of immense potential, but as long as we continue to vandalize our own future and normalize the criminality behind our wealth, we will remain a giant with feet of clay. The path to redemption is digital, it is judicial, but above all, it is personal. It starts with the man in the mirror.
*Prof. Sarumi, a Digital Transformation Consultant, writes from Lagos.