Nigeria, Oct. 7 -- If ever there was a spectacle that tickled both curiosity and concern, it is the recent deployment of 380 "marshals" by the Kano State Government to fight phone snatching. One cannot help but ask: Is this a genuine step toward public safety or a comic diversion staged to earn applause from an exhausted populace? When a government begins to fight pickpockets with parades, one wonders if governance has become theatre and security, a stage play. Kano, one of Nigeria's largest and most vibrant states, now finds itself experimenting with what appears to be a decorative solution to a deeply rooted problem. The news that a battalion of "marshals" has been unleashed to tackle phone theft reads like satire disguised as strategy....