The recent arrest of Afolabi Kazeem Michael, popularly known as KC Luxury, a suspected drug kingpin in Nigeria should provoke more than the usual social media frenzy over luxury cars, designer clothes and extravagant lifestyles. It should compel Nigerians to confront an uncomfortable question: “when did criminal enterprise become synonymous with hard work?”

The arrest of the alleged drug baron, coming amid growing concerns over the activities of fraudsters, drug traffickers and other operators of the illicit economy, offers an opportunity to examine a dangerous cultural shift. Increasingly, some Nigerians appear to judge success by the size of a person’s wealth rather than by how that wealth was acquired. This is particularly troubling in the age of social media, where cyberspace has become a showroom for conspicuous consumption.

Luxury cars, expensive watches, exotic holidays, mansions and lavish parties are displayed as evidence of success. The source of the money, however, is often treated as an inconvenient detail. That attitude is dangerous.

A person can be extremely determined, intelligent, strategic and hardworking and still deploy those qualities toward criminal ends. Fraudsters may spend long hours learning coding, social engineering and ways of circumventing digital security. Drug traffickers may build sophisticated international networks, establish supply chains and constantly devise methods of evading law enforcement. But criminal ingenuity is not legitimate hard work.

A fraudster who spends 15 hours manipulating victims is not more hardworking than a trader who spends 15 hours in the market. A drug trafficker who builds an international network is not more industrious than a farmer who wakes before dawn to produce food. Effort alone does not make an activity virtuous.

Unfortunately, Nigeria’s current economic realities have made this distinction increasingly blurred. The honest worker may wake up before dawn, battle hours of traffic, work throughout the day and return home exhausted, yet remain unable to afford a comfortable life. A young graduate may spend months searching for employment. A small-business owner may work from morning until night and still struggle with rent, electricity, transportation and rising operating costs. Yet such people are sometimes dismissed as lacking ambition. Meanwhile, someone who suddenly acquires exotic cars and flaunts unexplained wealth online may be celebrated as a “big boy”. That is the dangerous lie.

The problem is not wealth. Nigerians should be encouraged to become prosperous through legitimate enterprise, innovation and investment. The problem is the growing tendency to admire wealth without questioning its provenance. The recent drug arrest should therefore serve as a wake-up call.

Where allegations of drug trafficking or other serious crimes are made, the accused must have their day in court and be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But the broader social lesson remains important: “a glamorous public image tells us very little about the legitimacy of the wealth behind it.”

For young Nigerians in particular, the distinction matters. A young person constantly exposed to images of people living extravagant lifestyles may begin to believe that conventional work is for fools. If the people displaying such wealth are celebrated regardless of how they acquired it, the message becomes even more destructive: get rich first and nobody will ask questions later. That is precisely the mindset society must resist.

Nigeria cannot afford a generation that considers integrity a sign of weakness and criminal cleverness a sign of intelligence. The country needs to restore dignity to legitimate labour.

The teacher who educates children, the farmer who produces food, the artisan who perfects a craft, the journalist who reports the truth, the engineer who builds infrastructure, the entrepreneur who employs people and the civil servant who performs his duties honestly should not be made to feel like failures simply because they do not own Maybachs or live in mansions.

Given the foregoing view, hard work should be measured by the value created, not merely by the wealth displayed.There is also a need to challenge the tendency to blame struggling Nigerians for their circumstances.

Poverty is not always evidence of laziness. Low wages, unemployment, inflation, inadequate infrastructure, expensive housing, poor access to capital and limited economic opportunities can prevent hardworking people from achieving financial security. Personal responsibility matters, but so do the conditions within which people are expected to succeed.

Conversely, wealth is not proof of character. Someone can be rich and honest. Someone can also be rich and corrupt. Someone can be poor and hardworking. Someone can equally be poor because of poor choices. Money, by itself, tells us none of these things.

This is why cyberspace must not become a place where criminality is romanticized simply because it is packaged attractively. The expensive car does not tell the story. The designer outfit does not tell the story. The mansion does not tell the story.

The question that matters is: “how was the money made?” That question should become more important than the number of cars in someone’s garage.

Nigeria needs to celebrate legitimate success again. Young people should be taught that building wealth honestly may take time, but that there is dignity in the process. They should understand that a modest but legitimate income is infinitely more respectable than an extravagant lifestyle financed by activities that destroy other people’s lives.

Drug trafficking, fraud and other forms of criminality should never be romanticized as evidence of ambition. A person who works tirelessly to poison society is not a role model. A person who uses intelligence to defraud others is not necessarily clever. And a person who acquires enormous wealth through illegal means should not automatically be described as hardworking.

The recent arrest of KC Luxury should therefore be viewed not only through the prism of law enforcement, but also through the prism of values. Nigeria’s battle against criminality cannot be won solely through arrests and prosecutions. It must also be fought in the marketplace of ideas, particularly on social media, where young minds are constantly exposed to competing definitions of success.

In fact, we must stop asking only, “How much does he have?” We must begin asking, “How did he get it?” Until that question becomes central to how Nigerians judge success, society risks raising a generation that mistakes criminality for cleverness and honest struggle for failure.And that would be a far more dangerous legacy than the criminals themselves.