Nigeria, Aug. 14 -- Every now and then, something important happens in Nigeria without attracting the attention it deserves. It is almost as if we have become conditioned to ignore quiet successes, while reserving all our energy for loud failures. A fuel queue will trend. A political quarrel will dominate the airwaves. A celebrity's social media drama will occupy our timelines. But a policy reform that could reshape one of the country's biggest industries? Not so much.

That is why I have been thinking about what happened at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, on 21 July, when the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) concluded the country's 2025 Oil Block Licensing Round. It was one of those government events that many peopl...