Nigeria: Man Must Whack

On the surface, Nigeria seemed tranquil enough. A dozen ocean-going freighters thrashed seaward from Lagos' Apapa Quay, laden with cocoa, groundnuts, rubber and timber. In the Eastern Region's capital of Enugu, helmeted coal miners queued up as usual at the "Drink Tea and Eat Fried Meat and Radio Servicing" shop. At the Iddo Motor Park, beside the Bight of Benin, the lorries and "mammy wagons" of Ibo refugees were drawn into a frontier-style circle, while families clustered around huge pots of palm-oil chop—a bubbling mass of rice, meat, fish and coconut squeezings....