Nigeria, Jan. 29 -- There is a sound that follows the demolition of a home, and it is far more haunting than the roar of excavators or the crash of collapsing concrete. It is the sound of lives unraveling in real time: the piercing cries of mothers searching for missing children, the mute shock of elderly men watching decades of toil reduced to rubble, and the bewildered questions of children who cannot grasp why the place they called home has suddenly become a crime scene. In Lagos, that sound has become disturbingly familiar, and tragically lethal.

Lagos is a city in a hurry. It builds fast, enforces fast, demolishes fast. It prides itself on being Africa's commercial heartbeat, a megacity racing toward global relevance. Yet in this r...