Nigeria

The complexities of our colonial legacy

24 February 2024 9:00 am

Weighing the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ effects of British imperialism is a futile exercise, says Sathnam Sanghera. But he comes perilously close to doing just that

What’s to become of Africa’s teeming youth?

19 February 2022 9:00 am

Demographers are attached to their theories. The field’s most enduring is the ‘demographic transition’, whereby modernisation inexorably lowers a society’s…

A broken nation: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, by Wole Soyinka, reviewed

4 December 2021 9:00 am

One of the best episodes in Wole Soyinka’s third novel (his first since 1973) takes place not in Nigeria but…

Who really owns the Benin Bronzes?

5 September 2021 3:30 pm

Should the British Museum return its priceless collection of Benin Bronzes? For years, the museum has stood firm in its…

Nigeria’s abduction epidemic and the silence of the west

7 July 2021 5:20 am

Every day, more and more children are going missing in Nigeria. At least 140 schoolchildren were kidnapped in Nigeria’s northwestern Kaduna city yesterday.…

Boko Haram’s demise will only strengthen Isis in Africa

26 May 2021 1:21 am

Multiple reports have confirmed that the Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau is dead. Shekau’s demise came after Boko Haram last…

The problem of the Benin Bronzes will never go away

24 April 2021 9:00 am

A book about the looted African art known as the Benin Bronzes begins by clarifying that most of them are…

Are we witnessing the birth of an African Islamic State?

15 January 2021 2:24 am

On Monday, 13 soldiers were killedby the Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria. A week ago, just after midnight on Friday…

Why we’ll all be fleeing to Nigeria

9 May 2020 9:00 am

I keep thinking what I’ll do when we regain our liberty — and I picture that beer at the end…

Revealed: Boko Haram’s child army

29 June 2019 9:00 am

In the rush to declare Isis dead now that its caliphate has been routed from Iraq and Syria, it’s easy…

An inflatable boat with 47 migrants is rescued off Libya’s coast in January 2019. Credit: Getty Images

Desperate souls: Travellers, by Helon Habila, reviewed

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Death by water haunts the stories of Africans in Europe that flow through this fourth novel by Helon Habila. From…

Chigozie Obioma. Credit: Jason Keith.

An Igbo Paradise Lost: An Orchestra of Minorities, by Chigozie Obioma, reviewed

12 January 2019 9:00 am

Nurture hatred in your heart and you will keep ‘an unfed tiger in a house full of children’. A man…

The ties that bound us

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…

Stitches in time

15 July 2017 9:00 am

When Martha Ann Ricks was 76 she travelled from her home in Liberia to London to meet Queen Victoria. The…

Portrait of the week

25 July 2015 9:00 am

Home Parents would be able to have their children’s passports removed if they were suspected of planning to travel abroad…

Portrait of the week

18 July 2015 9:00 am

Home The government postponed a Commons vote on relaxing the Hunting Act in England and Wales after the Scottish National…

Portrait of the week

27 June 2015 9:00 am

Home Tens of thousands took part in a demonstration in London against austerity, and thousands more in other cities. Russell…

Mercenaries could transform the fight against Isis – if we let them

30 May 2015 9:00 am

Private military contractors have done wonders against Boko Haram. They could against Isis, too

Portrait of the week

28 February 2015 9:00 am

Home Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, resigned as chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee and promised…

Only capitalism can save Nigeria

31 January 2015 9:00 am

Is West Africa's powerhouse headed for a boom - or a coup?

Patriotism isn’t uncivilised - it’s what makes civilisation possible

22 November 2014 9:00 am

Is it racist to be patriotic? Is patriotism, by definition, small-minded and exclusive? When you strip away the onion layers…

Panic about Ebola in Africa – not here

18 October 2014 9:00 am

Got Ebola yet? Early symptoms are very difficult to distinguish from either winter flu or, indeed, a particularly bad hangover.…

What will it take for us to stop doing business with Qatar?

4 October 2014 9:00 am

Qatari money has flooded into London – but also into much less savoury places

The forgotten flank of the forgotten corps of the Forgotten Army

6 September 2014 9:00 am

The British who fought in Burma became known as the ‘Forgotten Army’ because this was a neglected theatre of the…

David Cameron's plot to keep us in the EU (it's working)

24 May 2014 9:00 am

I write this before the results of the European elections, making the not very original guess that Ukip will do…