This is a guest post by Dr. Deirdre LaPin, co-author of Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011) and a longstanding resident and development expert on Nigeria. Read more »

This is a guest post by Tiffany Lynch, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed are her own and may or may not reflect the views of the Commission.

For almost two years, stories about violence in Nigeria have focused almost exclusively on Boko Haram’s attacks on churches and Christians; police stations and other government buildings; schools and politicians; and Muslim critics. Forgotten is Nigeria’s longer and more deadly history of religiously-related violence. Too much analysis of Boko Haram fails to take into account how Nigeria’s history of Muslim-Christian violence directly contributes to the Boko Haram phenomenon. Read more »

On April 24, President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the Committee and established its modalities in a ceremony at the presidential villa. The committee is to open talks with the Islamic insurgency Boko Haram within three months, and work out modalities for an amnesty for the insurgents and compensation for its victims. Read more »

The restoration of railway services between Lagos and Kano, Nigeria’s two largest cities, is a highly positive development. This is a hopeful step toward restoring Nigeria’s entire, once nation-wide, railway system. Read more »

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers.

John Kane-Berman, Chief Executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations and South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, on March 14, spoke at the Cato Institute on South Africa’s future under the African National Congress (ANC). Read more »

This is a guest post by Kyle Benjamin Schneps; a dual master’s degree candidate at Columbia University specializing in international security policy and global health initiatives. He is currently completing a graduate internship with the Africa Studies program at Council on Foreign Relations. Read more »

Kenyan elections took place on March 4. While some technical aspects of it were ragged, especially the transmission and consolidation of vote counts, voting appears to have been largely peaceful. Thus far, there has been little questioning of the credibility of the process. Read more »

Around one billion people live in fragile or failing states. Yet no Washington administration has developed a strategy for helping such states address the causes of their fragility. Instead, most administrations respond ad hoc to the crises of the day, ranging from Tunisia and the debut of the Arab Spring, to Mali and radical Islamism in the Sahel. Too often, Washington’s focus is short term and on “international terrorism,” rather than on the root causes of state failure. Read more »

The South African police on February 28 “allegedly” tied a Mozambican cab driver, Medo Macia, to the back of a truck and dragged him to the police station where he died. Apparently, the cab driver had parked his vehicle in a way that blocked traffic. I say “alleged;” but the video of the atrocity (the images are disturbing) is clear, and it has gone viral in South Africa and elsewhere–the New York Times ran the story on February 28. Read more »

This is a guest post by Fr. Giles Conacher, a Benedictine monk based in Ghana. 

Ghana is often portrayed as Africa’s answer to sliced bread, a political and economic role model for all of Africa–does it deserve so much credit?

Politically it shows creditable maturity. In elections in 2004, 2008, and 2012 it successfully and peacefully changed president. The margin between losers and the victors, in the 2008 presidential runoff, was 48.1 percent to 51.9 percent, and yet there was a change of government, party, and president; no riots. I was proud of “our Ghana,” I tell you! Read more »