Nigeria, Aug. 6 -- A curious story made its rounds on social media recently: the son of Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party in Nigeria's 2023 elections, was reportedly celebrated for graduating from a foreign university. This wouldn't be remarkable-except Datti himself owns Baze University in Abuja. The irony was not lost on critics, who saw it as yet another case of "do as I say, not as I do," a hypocrisy so familiar it almost feels cultural.

The post-shared widely across WhatsApp, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter)-has no verified coverage in mainstream news, and Datti has neither confirmed nor denied it. But whether or not the story is true almost doesn't matter. The public believed it because it fits too...