By Chris Osa Nehikhare | Publisher, From My Window

There was a time when a person’s name was their greatest asset. A handshake was a commitment, a promise was a bond, and a good reputation was worth more than money. Parents taught their children that a good name was better than silver and gold. Today, in Nigeria, one is tempted to ask: how much is a good name worth when almost everything appears to have a price?

Over the past thirty years, we have witnessed what appears to be a gradual erosion of the values that once held our society together. Corruption, once something to be concealed in shame, is increasingly displayed without embarrassment. Wealth is celebrated without sufficient curiosity about its origins. Public office is too often treated as an investment from which enormous returns must be extracted. Even institutions established to protect justice and uphold morality are not immune to the temptation of money.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is not that corruption exists. It is that we are becoming comfortable with it.

We condemn the politician who steals billions but celebrate the neighbour whose unexplained wealth finances community projects. We complain about compromised public officials but willingly offer bribes to escape the inconvenience of following the rules. We demand accountability from those in power while excusing dishonesty among our friends, relatives and associates.

Our moral outrage has become selective. Corruption is evil when committed by strangers but often forgivable when its proceeds reach our doorstep.

And what of the next generation? What lessons are we teaching young Nigerians when honest labour appears to attract ridicule while questionable wealth commands respect? When children see that influence can purchase justice, qualifications can be bypassed, and loyalty can be bought, we should not be surprised when they begin to regard integrity as a disadvantage.

We are raising a generation that risks confusing success with wealth and wealth with virtue.

But is Nigeria actually becoming more corrupt with each passing year, or have we simply become more aware of the corruption around us?

The available evidence calls for some caution. Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index gave Nigeria a score of 26 out of 100, unchanged from 2024. This points to persistent problems with public-sector corruption, but it does not establish that corruption has worsened every single year over the past three decades. Nevertheless, the figures provide little comfort. Beyond the statistics lies a troubling question about our collective values: have we gradually normalised the very conduct we once condemned?

Corruption is not merely a failure of individual character. It thrives where institutions are weak, consequences are negotiable, poverty creates desperation, and access to opportunity depends more on whom one knows than on what one can do. A society that rewards dishonesty while punishing integrity cannot reasonably expect morality to flourish.

Can Nigeria be fixed?

Yes. But not through another campaign of slogans, ceremonial declarations or selective prosecutions. Our recovery must begin with rebuilding the relationship between conduct and consequence.

Honesty must become rewarding. Dishonesty must become costly. Institutions must be strong enough to hold the powerful accountable and fair enough to protect the ordinary citizen. Parents, religious leaders, traditional institutions and schools must recover the courage to question wealth rather than merely celebrate it.

Above all, we must abandon the convenient belief that corruption is exclusively a problem of government. Government may provide the most spectacular examples, but the disease has travelled far beyond its corridors.

It is in the examination hall where grades are purchased, in the workplace where merit is sacrificed for connections, in the marketplace where dishonesty is excused as cleverness, and sometimes in our homes, where children are taught to admire wealth without questioning its source.

We cannot demand a morally upright government while tolerating a morally bankrupt society. Nor can we expect citizens to remain honest when those who obey the rules are consistently disadvantaged by those who break them.

Thirty years of declining trust cannot be reversed overnight. But neither must the next thirty years be a continuation of the last.

The rebuilding of Nigeria must begin with a fundamental change in what we celebrate, what we condemn and what we are prepared to tolerate. We must rediscover the courage to say that wealth without integrity is not success, that influence without character is not leadership, and that loyalty purchased with money is not loyalty at all.

A nation does not collapse only when its institutions fail. It begins to collapse when its people stop believing that doing the right thing matters.

Until integrity becomes more valuable than influence, and character more respected than unexplained wealth, we will remain a country where trust takes years to build and only moments to purchase.