When, a third of a century ago, I arrived in the town of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, everyone was away at the public executions. They were evidently the best free show in town: I watched them (all but the denouement) on television in the hotel bar that night, when it was said that the audience, or whatever you call the attendees at a public execution, was almost disappointed by the fact that the execution ground was waterlogged and therefore the stakes could not properly—safely?—be driven into the soil. Fortunately, said the commentator (though it was not fortunate for all), a patch of dry ground had been found, so that the executions could go ahead as scheduled, and the crows not be disappointed. The three to be executed were armed robbers, though one of them claimed still to be innocent when the commentator’s microphone was thrust …