Nigeria, March 19 -- There are moments when a single courtroom incident stops being just "news" and starts reading like a symptom. The recent confrontation at the Federal High Court in Abuja, where Justice Mohammed Umar reportedly ordered a lawyer to kneel in court, belongs squarely in that category. It is not just unusual; it is crude in the most institutional sense of the word. And the more closely one examines the facts, the more trouble the entire episode becomes.

For us to be clear about what happened, it is expedient in this context to recall that during the ongoing trial of activist Omoyele Sowore, who is being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS) over remarks allegedly describing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a ...