Nigeria, Oct. 21 -- I heard gunshots, so I thought. For a second, my mind was blank. I recall lying flat beside my colleague on the freshly mowed lawn at the entrance of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel. I became mindful after a passerby shouted at us to keep moving instead of lying flat on the ground.

Twice in less than a month, I became a victim of the indiscriminate use of teargas by the Nigerian police. The first incident occurred last month while I covered the resumption of Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan to the Senate from a six-month suspension, accompanied by her crowd of supporters. The senator's backers marched in solidarity with her from the FCT High Court in Maitama to the gates of the National Assembly in the Three Ar...