For eight years now, we have been tracking the evolution of political violence in Nigeria with the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST). While Boko Haram has always been a focus, we have collected data pertaining to police and military violence, and sectarian conflict. We have also recorded violent crime and kidnapping. Nevertheless, we are most frequently asked about the conflict in northeastern Nigeria.

As over 120 leaders meet in New York for the UN General Assembly, the civil war in Syria is generating significant attention but little collective action. After eighteen months, the toll is dire: nea…

The worsening crisis in northern Mozambique is a case study in why governance matters. For years, the prevailing narrative about Mozambique was all about peace dividends, economic growth, and the promise the country’s extraordinary natural resources.

On Monday March 28, 2022, some gunmen launched a deadly attack on a Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) Abuja-Kaduna evening train carrying an estimated 398 passengers. After detonating explosives on the track (and possibly inside the train according to conflicting reports in the local media), the gunmen surrounded the immobilized train and started discharging their firearms into the carriages. It took at least an hour before a detachment of the Nigerian military came to the rescue of the passengers, who had cowered under their seats as the bandits fired incessantly. The incident left at least eight people dead—among them a young medical doctor Chinelo Megafu and Musa Lawal-Ozigi, secretary-general of the country’s Trade Union Congress—and at least another forty-one hospitalized, while the yet unidentified assailants also captured some of the passengers.