From Political Extraction to Staff Theft: Why Nigeria’s Workers Resort to Stealing

Nigeria suffers two layers of systemic theft. At the top, political actors and elite networks siphon public budgets, inflate contracts and weaken institutions. Overseas, commodity traders and global markets strip value from our currency and energy infrastructure. By the time revenue reaches businesses, little remains. Procurement fraud and patronage capture further drain resources. What finally arrives on the shop floor is the compressed residual left for workers. Faced with low pay, poor tools and collapsing trust, some staff resort to small-scale theft. This shop-floor crisis flows from decades of normalized extraction at higher levels. You can’t mop the floor while the ceiling is still leaking from above.

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