Nigeria, Sept. 13 -- There are ideas that begin in institutions.

There are ideas that begin in universities, think tanks, laboratories and conference rooms, surrounded by shelves of books and the reassuring architecture of intellectual authority.

And then there are ideas that begin at a desk.

A desk can be ordinary furniture. It can also be a place from which a person decides that the world does not have to remain exactly as it was handed to him.

In the concluding part of my treatise on the Sundiata Post Model, published through The Sunday Stew and as a working paper on scholarly platforms, I wrote: "From my desk at the Sundiata Post, Abuja, I release these ideas - the Sundiata Post Model - into the world."

I did not mean it merely a...