• Madina Thiam

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, a number of West African Muslims migrated east, settling in Sudan and Mecca, to seek refuge from European colonization.

• Vincent Foucher

The French philosopher and TV personality favors spectacle over analysis. The result: we don't make sense of political violence in Nigeria.

• Rahmane Idrissa

How local conflicts in the Sahel-Sahara over justice, or rather its absence, get dragged into tensions between outsiders.

Long before Boko Haram, talk of holy war in what became Nigeria was everywhere.

• Nicole Gerber

There is a certain deja vu about how Alpha Conde stays in power: every time there's an election he exploits ethnic divisions.

• Sean Jacobs