A nation divided

THE road junction bears no sign that marks a border: no custom house nor passport office. On one side is a burnt-out brick building and on the other an unkempt meadow. Both are on Nigerian soil according to official maps. Yet reality is different. Down what locals call the cattle road lies another country. Between the cities of Gombe and Maiduguri the tarmac is in the hands of Boko Haram.

In recent months the extreme Islamist group has taken over swathes of north-east Nigeria. It controls at least two dozen towns in Borno state and parts of the neighbouring states of Adamawa and Yobe. Gwoza, a hill town of almost half a million people, is the capital of its self-declared caliphate. Few outsiders dare to visit. A trader who recently returned after making a delivery approved by the militants described it as an abattoir after hours: “cold, calm and full of blood”.