This week, the Nigerian state responded. To the courts. To South Africa. To the deadline. The question is what it took to make it respond.

The ADC had to petition the Chief Justice of Nigeria before the Supreme Court found time. Two Nigerians had to be killed in South Africa before Abuja issued formal demands. INEC's deadline has to be ten days away before the urgency of a court ruling registers as actual urgency.

None of these things are unusual. They fit a recognisable pattern in how Nigerian institutions move. They move when the cost of not moving becomes visible. When the headline is written. When the letter arrives. When the body is counted.

The question this week makes urgent isn't whether Nigeria's institutions function. Today showed that some of them do. The question is what has to happen first.

What has to be taken before a protection is given. What has to be lost before a deadline is treated like a deadline. What has to end before a process begins.

That's not a question about this week specifically. It's a question about the gap between when a system should respond and when it does. Nigeria has that gap. Every country has that gap. What varies is how wide it is, and who falls into it.