Nigeria, March 19 -- Two years into the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and decades into Nigerians triumphant return to democracy, one thing is clear: the country is on a clear, clutterless road to somewhere, only backwards.

The aphorism that fish begins to rot from the head is true to the extent that for the body of the fish to rot, the invading rot has to carve out a route of rot from the head. In Nigeria, this carving is mostly done by rote these days.

The decision of the President to slam a state of emergency on Rivers State will surely go down as the most unpopular decision taken by this administration, and that is some prize in an administration that has stumbled from one disastrous decision to another. Redemption fr...