How kidnappers, zealots and rebels are making Nigeria ungovernable

ONE EVENING in March Emmanuel was in bed, about to doze off. The next moment, armed men burst into his college dormitory in north-west Nigeria and dragged him and 38 other panicked, half-dressed students outside and deep into a forest. “We were tortured,” says Emmanuel. One bandit would film as others beat the screaming students, who were forced to call their parents to demand a total ransom of 500m naira ($1.2m). Emmanuel’s father sold his car to find the cash.

“Security [in Nigeria] is at its worst since the civil war,” says Cheta Nwanze of SBM Intelligence, a consultancy in Lagos. This is a startling claim. The Biafran war of 1967-70, when the Igbos of the oil-rich south-east tried but failed to secede from Nigeria, claimed an estimated 1m lives. Since then, Nigeria has held together. The country of 200m people has had mountains of problems, from corruption and ethnic strife to a string of military dictators. But it has been democratic since 1999. And parts of it are thriving, especially in the south-west. Lagos, the commercial capital, is home to vigorous banks, a hip technology scene and a flourishing film industry, Nollywood.