The Intention to Be Evil: Why Do Humans Choose Wickedness?
By Ameh Abraham
There is a question that haunts every act of human cruelty, from the petty to the monstrous: why do people choose to be wicked when they could just as easily choose not to be?
Not the wickedness of desperation, the hungry man who steals bread, the oppressed who strikes back. That kind of wrongdoing has cause and context. It can be understood, even if not excused.
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But what of the wickedness that is intentional, calculated, and sustained? The political leader who diverts public funds while children die of malnutrition? The kidnapper who collects ransom but still kills his hostage? The official who demands a bribe from a sick man seeking medicine? The neighbour who spreads false rumours, knowing they will destroy a family? The religious leader who blesses corruption from the pulpit while living on stolen wealth?
What kind of person sees suffering and chooses to cause more of it? What kind of mind looks at a vulnerable fellow human and sees not a person but an opportunity for extraction?
Three Psychological Roots of Wickedness
History, philosophy, and theology offer three overlapping explanations for why humans choose wickedness.
1. Dehumanisation: Making Victims Invisible
The first root of wickedness is the deliberate or learned refusal to see others as fully human.
The bandit does not see the farmer as a father; he sees an obstacle. The corrupt official does not see the sick child as a life; he sees a revenue stream. When we stop seeing others as fully human, when we reduce them to categories, numbers, or enemies, wickedness becomes easy. The Nazis called their victims Untermenschen (subhumans). Hutu extremists called Tutsis “cockroaches.” Nigerian politicians call struggling citizens “lazy” or “complaining.”
The language of dehumanisation is always the first step toward intentional cruelty. Once a group has been labelled as less than human, any atrocity becomes defensible. This is why propaganda always precedes genocide. This is why corrupt leaders always frame their victims as undeserving. You cannot steal from a person you truly see. You can only steal from a category.
2. The Loss of Shame: When Wickedness Becomes Performance
The second root is the evaporation of shame.
Shame is the social emotion that stops us from doing wrong because we fear how others will see us. But when a society celebrates wealth regardless of its source, when it honours politicians who stole openly, when it applauds pastors who fly private jets while their congregants cannot afford bread, shame evaporates. The wicked no longer hides. They boast. And when wickedness is celebrated, it multiplies.
Consider Nazi Germany. As Stetson notes, Germany in the 1930s was “one of the most advanced countries in the world”, well-educated, industrially sophisticated, culturally rich. Yet millions of Germans voted for Adolf Hitler, who promised territorial expansion, racial purity, and the extermination of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and disabled people. The Nazis did not hide their evil. They marched through the streets with torches, staged massive rallies, and produced films that glorified their ideology. A twisted pride had replaced shame.
The same dynamic operates in Nigeria today. Corrupt politicians are celebrated as “benefactors” when they donate a fraction of stolen wealth to churches or mosques. Ex-convicts continue to hold public office. Parents who earned honest wages for decades hesitate to question a young adult’s sudden affluence. When society consistently rewards the fruits of corruption while ignoring its roots, wickedness becomes normalised. And when wickedness is normalised, it is no longer recognised as wickedness at all.
3. The Pleasure of Power: Cruelty as Recreation
The third root is the most disturbing: some people simply enjoy power over others.
Not the power to build or serve, but the raw, intoxicating power to make another human being suffer. This is wickedness as pleasure, cruelty as recreation. It is the mobster who orders a beating for amusement. It is the schoolyard bully who never grew up. It is the bureaucrat who takes pleasure in saying “no” just because he can. It is the law enforcement officer who plants drugs on an innocent citizen just to watch them squirm.
Stetson warns that “the world we live in is not good by default. Quite the contrary; it is an epic battlefield for the very soul of human beings, and more often than not, evil has the upper hand”. This is not pessimism; it is realism. The historical record confirms it. As Jacob F. Field documents in One Bloody Thing After Another, “violence, torture, massacre, tyranny, and disaster litter the annals of world history”. War crimes, genocide, and imaginative forms of torture have all been the typical human condition across centuries and continents.
And it continues today. In Saudi Arabia, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered with a bone saw for criticising the ruling family. In China, millions of Uighur Muslims have been imprisoned in forced labour camps for “reeducation.” According to Freedom House, only 83 out of 210 countries in the world are considered “free” today. In most places, people are still oppressed by the evil impulses of authoritarian leaders, gangs, and cartels.
There is also something essential about wickedness: evil is not simply the breaking of rules; it is the refusal to play one’s part in the common symphony. The corrupt politician does not merely break a law; he introduces a discord that weakens the entire society. The kidnapper does not merely commit a crime; he replaces cooperation with exploitation. The religious leader who blesses corruption does not merely sin; he poisons the well of moral authority.
Stetson describes the ultimate trajectory of evil: “replace cooperation with exploitation, seeking to take away the freedom of some beings by manipulating them and stealing their energy and creative power.” At its nadir, evil seeks “the creation of a counterfeit unity, a diabolical perfection that is not of God.” Hitler’s dream of a thousand-year Reich. The dictator’s obsession with total control. The corporate monopolist’s drive to crush all competitors. All are attempts to impose a false harmony through destruction.
Can Wickedness Be Defeated?
If these three roots are correct, dehumanisation, loss of shame, and the pleasure of power, then the fight against wickedness must happen on three fronts.
First, we must relentlessly restore the humanity of every person. No labelling. No categories. No enemies. Every person, regardless of tribe, religion, or economic status, is a full human being deserving of dignity. This is not sentimentality; it is a strategic approach. The moment we allow ourselves to see another group as less than human, we have already lost.
Second, we must rebuild a culture of shame that condemns wrongdoing. Shame is not the enemy; shamelessness is. We must make it socially costly to be corrupt. We must celebrate integrity as loudly as we currently celebrate wealth. We must refuse to honour politicians, pastors, or traditional rulers who have stolen public funds. When wickedness loses its audience, it loses its power.
Third, we must strip power from those who enjoy cruelty. Not reform them. Do not rehabilitate them. Remove them. The bureaucrat who enjoys saying “no” should not have the authority to say “no.” The police officer who plants drugs should not carry a badge. The politician who steals while children starve should not hold office. Accountability is not vengeance; it is the minimum requirement for a functioning society.
But here is the hardest truth: wickedness will never fully disappear from the human heart. There will always be those who choose the dark. The question is whether the rest of us will build walls strong enough to contain them, laws sharp enough to restrain them, and a collective conscience loud enough to drown out their justifications.
A Call to the Nigerian Conscience
Nigerians have endured intentional wickedness from leaders, from strangers, sometimes from those closest to them. We have seen corruption celebrated, cruelty rewarded, and kindness mocked. The reawakening of the Nigerian conscience begins with a simple refusal: we will no longer accept wickedness as normal.
We will call it by its name. We will refuse to celebrate its fruits. We will demand shame for the shameless. And we will teach our children that the only wealth worth having is wealth that never requires someone else’s tears.
The reawakening starts now. It starts here. It starts with each of us refusing to be silent in the face of wickedness.
