Nigeria
Round the world in a vast, unlovely barge
How does the metamorphosis of lumbering, engineless vessel – from freight container to troop-carrier to prison, hostel and rusting hulk – reflect today’s economic climate?
Is the tide turning on restitution?
When passions are aroused, all of us are liable to overstate our case. Dan Hicks, a curator at Oxford’s extraordinary…
The complexities of our colonial legacy
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
The four billion people question
Demographers are attached to their theories. The field’s most enduring is the ‘demographic transition’, whereby modernisation inexorably lowers a society’s…
Kings of the dung heap
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?
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
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
Multiple reports have confirmed that the Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau is dead. Shekau’s demise came after Boko Haram last…
Plunder from the palace
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?
On Monday, 13 soldiers were killedby the Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria. A week ago, just after midnight on Friday…
Wild life
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
In the rush to declare Isis dead now that its caliphate has been routed from Iraq and Syria, it’s easy…
Desperate souls: Travellers, by Helon Habila, reviewed
Death by water haunts the stories of Africans in Europe that flow through this fourth novel by Helon Habila. From…
An Igbo Paradise Lost: An Orchestra of Minorities, by Chigozie Obioma, reviewed
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
Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…
Stitches in time
When Martha Ann Ricks was 76 she travelled from her home in Liberia to London to meet Queen Victoria. The…
Portrait of the week
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
Home The government postponed a Commons vote on relaxing the Hunting Act in England and Wales after the Scottish National…
Portrait of the week
Home Tens of thousands took part in a demonstration in London against austerity, and thousands more in other cities. Russell…
How to defeat a caliphate
Private military contractors have done wonders against Boko Haram. They could against Isis, too
Portrait of the week
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
Is West Africa's powerhouse headed for a boom - or a coup?
Without patriotism, there’s no civilisation
Is it racist to be patriotic? Is patriotism, by definition, small-minded and exclusive? When you strip away the onion layers…
We should worry about Ebola in Africa, not here
Got Ebola yet? Early symptoms are very difficult to distinguish from either winter flu or, indeed, a particularly bad hangover.…
Whose side are they on?
Qatari money has flooded into London – but also into much less savoury places
