Nigeria, Sept. 21 -- Two events I came across recently capture the state of Nigeria's police-public relations with unsettling clarity. In Port Harcourt, angry youths blocked Agip Road to protest the killing of Anthony Obodo, a 22-year-old University of Port Harcourt graduate murdered by a police officer. The youths' anger was not hard to understand. The Rivers State police commissioner, who warned that the protest could be "hijacked by hoodlums," completely missed the point. His response, the unfortunate standard of Nigeria's security apparatus, was to treat legitimate grievance as a potential security threat. It has been happening since 1929. Meanwhile, Anthony Obodo's family is left with a dead son and a vague hope of justice.

The patt...