Nigeria, July 5 -- In a country where the line between crime and leadership has grown so thin it's practically invisible, the recent moral sermon by the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, sounds like a bitter joke. Telling Nigerian students that they cannot hold public office once convicted is akin to preaching sobriety in a brewery. It is hypocrisy dressed in a fine agbada of irony. While the EFCC lectures children on the consequences of crime, the corridors of power are brimming with ex-cons, fugitives, and fraudsters.

Mr. Olukoyede, in his righteous thunder, declared: "Anyone who engages in financial crimes is on a path that leads to jail. Once convicted, such a person becomes an ex-convict...