Gender and Corruption: Understanding the Increasing Role of Nigerian Women in Corrupt Practices.

Abstract

This paper interrogates the corresponding increase of Nigerian women in corrupt practices within the spell of their marginal appropriation into political and bureaucratic life. It argues that corruption or lack of it does not inhere in gender as a biological trait; rather, it is inherent in the institutional mechanisms that shapes and conditions the ethical dispositions of its players irrespective of their gender. Consequently, we contend that the corrupt nature of Nigeria‟s bureaucracy and the renteer political system that appropriate women into the bureaucratic and political spheres predispose them to corruption and makes their involvement inevitable. Keywords: Gender, corruption, electoral system, godfatherism, party-politics, integrity