Nigeria, April 26 -- If creeping plants could unite, they would easily tie up an elephant.

Politics is full of men who confuse noise for destiny. But destiny, that slippery old masquerade, usually waits for structure. In 1984, New Zealand's Prime Minister Robert Muldoon staggered into history by calling a snap election in a visibly drunken state, hoping to ambush the opposition. The gamble backfired. He lost. In January 2009, in Nigeria, police in Kwara detained a goat after vigilantes claimed an armed robbery suspect had transformed into the animal to escape arrest. The police kept the goat, but admitted they could not confirm the witchcraft scientifically. One story is about power intoxicated by its own myth. The other is about a soci...