– By Adenekan Shogunle
“A man’s workshop is his work-chop.”
In Nigeria, there is a street expression that has quietly done more damage to public ethics than many badly drafted laws. Rendered in pidgin English, it is universally understood and rarely challenged. Public office, in this framing, is not a place of service but a place of entitlement.
A twisted logic that entitles a public officer to treat public office as a personal ATM. You are expected to “eat” where you work. Failure to do so is seen, not as integrity, but as foolishness. The idea has endured because it offers something irresistible: moral cover for personal enrichment.
THE MORAL SMOKESCREEN
What gives this mentality its stubborn resilience is that it is often dressed in higher justification. Proximity to power is conflated with permission to consume. The crucial distinction between legitimate provision and unrestrained extraction is quietly erased. Corruption, in this logic, is no longer theft; it is reframed as occupational privilege.
For many public officers, this justification is not merely cultural but religious. Scripture is often weaponized to provide cover. References are made to the assertion that “they which minister about holy things live off the things of the temple” (1 Corinthians 9:13–14). Yet, these verses were intended to guarantee modest sustenance for the servant, not unchecked indulgence for the master. When restraint is discarded, corruption becomes a spiritually defensible compensation.
It is at this point that “work-chop” graduates from a bad habit into a moral doctrine.
THE EVOLUTION: FROM CRUDE LOOTING TO STRATEGIC DESIGN
Long before lawyers and statutes struggled to name this behavior, Fela Anikulapo Kuti identified it with devastating clarity. In his 1980 song “Authority Stealing,” Fela drew a distinction that remains disturbingly accurate: there is ordinary stealing, and there is authority stealing.
“Authority stealing,” in Fela’s words, “pass armed robbery.”
We must understand that corruption has evolved. In its early years, corruption in Nigeria was crude and unsophisticated. Public funds were stolen directly; ghost workers multiplied; accounts were raided with little subtlety. These acts were noisy, visible, and detectable. They left trails that even a basic audit could follow.
But systems learn. And so do those who exploit them.
As scrutiny increased, “work-chop” did not disappear; it adapted. Authority stealing matured from impulse into architecture. Direct looting gave way to layered extraction. The modern corrupt actor understands that the safest theft is not illegal on its face, it is procedurally correct.
THE CAMOUFLAGE OF LEGALESE
Today, money is no longer stolen after a decision; it is built into the decision itself. Corruption now hides within:
* Policy choices and discretionary approvals.
* Regulatory interpretations and waivers
* Strategic legal advice and committee memos.
At this stage, corruption stops looking like a crime and starts looking like governance. Legal language is no longer a restraint on power; it is a way to launder it. By the time public funds move, they have passed through layers of justification, national interest, executive discretion, institutional precedent. Each layer insulates the beneficiary, making accountability increasingly abstract.
This is no longer a man dipping his hand into the till. It is a man rewriting the rules of access to the till.
THE PRESENT RECKONING
This is why, with full respect for the courts and the principle of sub judice, FRN v. ABUBAKAR MALAMI resonates so strongly today. What troubles the public is not merely the allegation of enrichment, but the methodology attributed to it, the suggestion of authority exercising oversight over itself, and legality deployed as a shield.
In such a configuration, corruption is no longer an event; it becomes a process.
– Oversight becomes negotiable.
– Succession becomes insurance.
– Institutions begin to supervise themselves.
The honest public officer is no longer admired; he is pitied. “Did they not give you your own workshop?” he is repeatedly asked. “Why didn’t you chop when it was your turn?” This is the deeper tragedy. When authority stealing is normalized as ‘turn by turn’, society no longer asks whether an act is right or wrong, only whether it was done cleverly.
A HARDER RECKONING
In FRN v. MALAMI, and all similar cases, the courts will do their work. The lawyers will do their work. Evidence will be tested and verdicts will come. But beyond the courtroom lies a harder reckoning for us all.
We must confront not only who stole, but how stealing became intelligent, elegant, and institutional; how authority itself came to be treated as loot. Until we dismantle the lie at the heart of the “work-chop” mentality, that public office is a license rather than a trust, we will continue to produce not just thieves, but engineers and architects of theft.
As Fela warned, once authority itself is stolen, what we have left are Vagabonds In Power.
—- Shogunle is a Nigerian lawyer and writer based in Abuja. He writes frequently on law, governance and pubic ethics.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This reflection forms part of the SHOGUNLE SUNDAY SCHOOL series, a body of essays that examine Nigerian public life through the intersection of law, culture, ethics, and lived experience.
The views expressed are offered in good faith, without prejudice to any ongoing judicial proceedings, and are intended to interrogate systems, methods, and mentalities around corruption in Nigeria, and not to prejudge guilt or innocence.
Where cases before the courts are referenced, they are cited strictly for contextual and analytical purposes, in deference to the rule of law and the principle of sub judice.
