Simple answer...
Neo,
Why does the dog carry out his personal grooming (so to speak)?
Because he can!
I remember once visiting some retired "top shot" from the Nigeria Police in Minna. There was the sitting room with the pelmet sporting the usual rococo gilt framed chromos, the dusty fake Chippendale furniture and the big Sony TV from ten years ago with matching video player looking as if someone had been whacking them with a sandbag. Yes, all the trophies from a career of grabbing all he could, I suppose, but there he was living on a road that was more holes than road so that I wondered where he thought he was going in his Mercedes, really, even if he was willing to take his chances with the robbers.
The tragedy of the place is that people have learned from bitter experience to grab what they can for themselves. Anything shared is quickly gone, right down to the railings on the flyovers, hacked off, carted away and melted down for scrap. Check out the runway lights at Lagos: gone the same way in the early Eighties! You used to see a little heap of nuts and bolts and a fresh hole, first thing in the morning...
I seem to remember hearing how the chopper pilots were once asked to report any illegal bunkering they saw. The reports came flooding in and after a few days the next request was for them to ignore any bunkering they saw!
I shall ask my liberal family in America how to sort out the mess in Africa and get back to you with that. There is no use getting all "racist" about it, is there. I am sure the solution somehow involves sending everyone to college in America to learn Western values so that I shall probably be back to ask each of you working there for a small contribution from your huge wages.