Nigeria, June 12 -- It is always a delight to test the ideas of a politician against those of the political scientist. Both are concerned with politics and the political, and especially on the question of how a state ought to be governed, and the dynamics of a government vis-a-vis the lives and flourishing of the citizens. And what better contribution can one possibly make as the nation once again cast a searchlight on politics and governance, to mark the June 12 democracy day. I have argued in another piece that there is a tendency to want to favor the active politician over the academic political scientist given the reasoning that the politician is more concerned with the practical, and hence the more critical, dimensions of politics a...