Over the past week, following another violent clash with the security services, the leader of a Shia movement was ordered to be granted bail; Borno state has been hit with massive attacks, taking the lives of scores of civilians and military personnel; and the leader of a small political party who is also the editor of Sahara Reporters, was arrested shortly before planned protests could begin. Government responses to these crises appear so far to have been ineffective.

The principal Shiite movement in Nigeria, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), “stormed” the National Assembly in Abuja on July 7. In the resulting melee, two people may have been killed and eight injured. As is so often the case, there are few details, with claims and counter-claims.

The recent spate of coups in West Africa has unsurprisingly drawn the attention of African leaders. The resurgence of coups was high on the agenda of AU leaders who met last weekend in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Their condemnation of what a spokesperson described as a “wave of unconstitutional changes of government” was loud and unequivocal.

Read Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s full interview with Der Spiegel. Ishak Ibrahim takes a closer look at the threats facing Coptic Christians in Libya. Sara Obeidat argues that war is n…

Under Nigeria’s custom of power rotation between the predominately Christian south and predominately Muslin north, it is still the north’s “turn.”