Nigeria, June 26 -- There are certain difficult conversations that many Nigerians shy away from. These are the conversations that challenge long-standing beliefs and confront the root causes of poverty, inequality and the dysfunction that has become characteristic of our national life. My friends Dr Usman Isyaku and Dr Bashir Jelani are among the few voices attempting to provoke these necessary dialogues. But their efforts often encounter resistance, not because their ideas lack merit, but because our cultural environment tends to discourage such introspection. We live in a society that often leans toward attributing hardship and stagnation to fate, divine will or external conspiracies, rather than to the failings of our institutions and ...