Nigeria, Feb. 12 -- Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of talent. It suffers from a shortage of conscience in power. Across the nation's political landscape, one finds individuals who once trained as lawyers, engineers, doctors, administrators, and soldiers; men and women whose education was funded directly or indirectly by the Nigerian people. Yet too many of these individuals have treated public office not as a trust to be honored, but as a vault to be opened. The result is a widening gulf between the governed and those who govern, between national promise and national reality.

This is not a new observation, but it remains painfully relevant. The pattern is familiar: citizens invest in education, institutions invest in training, ...