Nigeria, April 19 -- Never before have Nigerians found themselves in such a dire predicament, where the fate of an entire nation hinges on the whims of a single individual. One man handpicks who becomes governor or sole administrator, decides who gets even a whiff of justice, and determines whether we're allowed to peacefully protest the hardship we endure. It feels eerily akin to life in North Korea, where the Mount Paektu bloodline rules with absolute authority - or worse, King Leopold's Belgian Congo, governed like a private estate. In Nigerian street lingo: We don enter one chance.

From the very inception of his presidency, President Tinubu's modus operandi has been brazenly transparent: surround himself with the ethically compromise...