One morning in the last week of April, I remember scrolling through my social media and noticing the same gory-looking video across multiple platforms. After skipping past it a few times, due to my just-shy-of-extreme aversion to blood, I decided to stop and understand what was going on.

As it played out, the video showed a Nigerian man, Mene Ogidi, being restrained and then fatally shot by the police. The post went viral, and outrage spread as people across the country demanded police accountability.

The first thing I remember thinking was “Why was this getting so much attention?” A few weeks earlier, entire communities in Plateau State, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, had been driven from their homes by…