Nigeria, Nov. 3 -- Public activism is often dismissed as noise - hashtags that flare and fade, marches that make the evening news and then dissolve. But when citizens stay with the work beyond the first spark, activism becomes a disciplined insistence that power answers to justice. Nigeria's recent reversal and revision of the controversial presidential pardon list proved this. It showed that when people refuse to be bystanders, institutions can be nudged back toward the public interest, and discretion can be guided by reason, compassion, and security in equal measure. It also showed something subtler: that the legitimacy of mercy grows when it is bounded by rules, transparent criteria, and the voices of those who bear the consequences of...