This is quite a captivating story to talk about.

I would agree and testify that an average youth in Africa is bound by pressure from the internet, friends, even in the neighborhood and so on.
I also believe there are two ways to think about this.

The first is the economy in Africa, it cannot be denied that cost of living is getting higher by the day while the minimum wages is close to not even increasing a bit.

I read a post yesterday by @akinolawilly, and he was also stressing about how the cost of living in Africa is increasing aggressively but there is little the government is doing about it.

I personally think the government also has a part to play in this discussion, as many youth are engaging in fraud because of lack of jobs and all,even some parents nowadays advice their children to venture into fraud.

This alone is stating how bad the economy is at the moment, while this is not an excuse to do fraud, it all comes down to having a proper upbringing by good parents and the fear of God as you have said.

Also the supposed people to enforce law are the real frauds here also. They don't even apprehend this fraudsters to bring them to justice but rather to extort money for their own personal gains too.

There are a lot of things that needs to be changed and corrected in Africa.

In time fraud will be a normal and encouraged handwork to do, if not curbed.

For people who do not engage in fraud, I can only say its by grace because pressure is everywhere an average African youth faces.