Nigeria, Aug. 1 -- It is, on its face, a complaint about concrete and cost overruns. It is, underneath, an invitation to interrogate power. When a sitting president stands in front of traditional rulers, men whose authority predates the republic itself, and essentially says watch your governors, ask them where the money went, he is doing something Nigerian democracy is starved of: inviting scrutiny downward, past the federal capital, into the state houses where financial strengthening of the governors' grip on the states require citizens audits, thereby placing citizens above politics.

In Abuja on Thursday, while receiving traditional rulers from Oyo state led by Oba Rashidi Ladoja, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, President Bola Tinubu switc...