The Desk — Finance, Policy & the View from the Street By Kemi Adeosun
How staff theft is quietly killing Nigeria’s service economy — and what it will take to stop it
There is a saying Nigerians know in our bones: every day for the thief, one day for the owner. It is meant to be a reassurance. Justice is slow, the proverb suggests, but it is coming. Sit tight. Be patient. Your day will arrive.
Through Nidacity, I spend roughly ninety percent of my time with entrepreneurs — in their businesses, on their platforms, at their elbows as they try to build something real. And what I have concluded, after months of those conversations, is that the old proverb needs updating.
In Nigeria’s service economy today, it is every day for the thief — and no day, ever, for the owner. This is not simply a story about declining values or individual morality. Criminologists have long understood that behaviour is shaped less by the severity of punishment than by the certainty of consequences. We have built an economy where the consequences of stealing from your employer are, for most participants, essentially zero. And we are living with the results.
