Nigeria, Dec. 8 -- Nigeria stands at a threshold again-one of those defining national moments when history pauses, looks around, and asks a simple but unsettling question: Who is standing at the gate? Every nation has gates. They are not wooden frames or iron bars; they are points of influence, places of decision, battlegrounds of culture, economy, justice, and national direction. And whoever stands at the gate determines what enters and what escapes. Nations rise or fall by their gatekeepers.

For too long, the gates of Nigeria have been manned by an ageing guard - some noble, many exhausted, and others simply unwilling to relinquish a gate they no longer have the strength or imagination to manage. But a nation cannot remain forever in t...