Nigeria, May 7 -- The first duty of a government is not complicated. It is to ensure that the person who goes to bed at night wakes up the next morning. Everything else, policy, politics, even rights, rests on that basic promise. When that promise begins to fail, the language of progress starts to sound hollow.

Nigeria today is caught in that contradiction. On paper, we are earning praise for restraint. Reports point to a "zero execution" record and present it as evidence that we are aligning with the standards of more "civilized" societies. It is a neat narrative. It travels well. It reassures the outside world that we are moving in the right direction.

But in places like Yelwata, in Guma Local Government, that narrative collapses on ...