Nigeria, April 12 -- When vigilantes incinerated traveling Hausa hunters in Uromi, Edo State, on the mistaken assumption that they were "Fulani herdsmen," countless Hausaphone Muslim northerners sent the videos to me with commentaries that reeked of unappeasable wrath.

Because there is a 6- to 5-hour time difference between Atlanta and Nigeria, some of the people who shared the videos with me became noticeably impatient with the perceived delay in my response.

Frustrated by the lag in my intervention, they sent messages reminding me of my swift and impassioned condemnation of the May 2022 murder of Deborah Yakubu in Sokoto. They wondered aloud why, unlike my immediate reaction to that previous incident, I had not yet commented on these ...