Moral Boundary Work and the Recasting of Fraud as Hustle in Southwestern Nigeria

This article examines how self-identified fraudsters in Abeokuta reinterpret the Yoruba adage “ole lo ba omo je” to legitimize cyber fraud as. Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews , it analyzes how respondents engage in moral boundary work by selectively redefining theft, labor, and legitimacy within youth precarity and distrust. It reveals that neutralization strategies reposition fraud as morally defensible relative to elite corruption. Furthermore, they reframed fraud as skilled labor requiring entrepreneurial competence. These discursive practices reflect an ongoing restructuring of moral categories in youth culture. Hence, foregrounding cultural reinterpretation of moral language positions the study among cybercrime scholarship in contemporary Africa.