Africa watchers have been focused of late on Burundi. On December 12, however, their attention was drawn back to Nigeria. The Nigerian army killed a number of Shia Muslims in Zaria, Kaduna state. Thi…

The unexpected pardon last week of two leading politicians convicted earlier on charges of corruption has brought renewed focus on Nigeria’s flailing anticorruption drive. Following a meeting of the country’s Council of State, Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, governors respectively of the central and northeastern states of Plateau and Taraba from 1997 to 2007 were pardoned along with 157 other convicts.

Nour Youssef on The Arabist offers her thoughts on the recent dialogue held between Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya member Nageh Ibrahim. Mohammad Azeemullah wonders if t…

Between October 27 and 30, protesters from the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shia religious organization led by the pro-Iranian Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, clashed with security services in and around Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The IMN reported that Nigerian security services had killed at least forty of its members during the marches.

In my previous post, I discussed how, after a surprising victory in May elections, and jubilation among supporters of the former opposition coalition that they had finally broken through, ending the …