This is a guest post by Dr. Deirdre LaPin, co-author of Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011) and a longstanding resident and development expert on Nigeria.

 Home to Nigeria’s hugely profitable oil industry, the Niger Delta is one of the poorest places on earth. At the end of April 2013, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs unveiled a new five year Action Plan that envisions $10 billion in government and private resources to develop the beleaguered region. Persistent underdevelopment was a key driver of the Delta’s militant insurgency until a presidential amnesty for fighters brought calm in late 2009. Well-meaning donors–including the EU, the UK’s Department of Development, the World Bank, and UNDP–saw the amnesty as an opportunity for a common framework to guide provision of desperately needed services and infrastructure to the region. They also suggested marshaling resources through a Multi-Stakeholder Trust Fund.

It was an ambitious proposal. No fewer than eight prior regional development plans had achieved scant results. Still, the Delta’s profound poverty and the need to consolidate peace under the amnesty justified the risk. In spring of 2012, the UNDP overcame the tragic terrorist bombing of its headquarters in Abuja and assembled a team of Nigeria experts. They designed actions for social investment, infrastructure, and institution building and anchored them to three critical results: improved living standards, sustainable economic development, and a consolidated peace.

In May this year, they shared with government and donors a draft plan that incorporated the best collective thinking of regional stakeholders and development experts. Social investment, which spanned eight different sectors, was the most challenging. Several programs were designed for quick implementation to meet urgent human needs and the reintegration of ex-combatants. They included creating thousands of small and larger businesses; skills training and apprenticeship schemes; a Niger Delta “works” program employing thousands of youth; water supply, education, health, and IT for remote communities; and a “citizens’ report card,” for monitoring local development.

Astonishingly, it seems that the version of the Action Plan unveiled by the ministry in late April omits all of the planned strategies for social investment. In their place is an extensive agri-business program. This entrepreneurial initiative, however welcome, offers narrow benefits that cannot alone address the region’s huge deficits in jobs and basic human services. Press reports suggest that improvements to the Action Plan are still possible. One member of the amnesty team says the social investment plan should be restored to support peaceful reintegration.  Otherwise, this latest in a long series of failed plans could once again miss its targets and leave the region’s thirty-five million people angry victims of a missed opportunity.

Kenya, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, by extension, the international community currently face the dilemma of dealing with a president and a deputy president, freely and fairly elected (more or less; many questions remain) that are charged with crimes against humanity associated with 2007 election bloodshed. Africa Confidential has an excellent review of the current state of play.

Kenya’s permanent representative to the UN, Kamau Macharia, on May 2 sent a thirteen-page letter to the UN Security Council (UNSC) asking it to end the ICC cases against President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto. He argued that Kenyatta and Ruto were duly and democratically elected and could not perform their duties in the face of “an offshore trial that has no popular resonance and serves no national or international purpose.” A variation of this argument is heard among Kenyatta’s supporters; “peace” is more important than “justice,” and the ICC process should somehow go away. But, Ruto promptly disavowed the letter on the basis that the UNSC lacks the legal authority to stop the ICC proceedings. Ruto’s lawyer reaffirmed his client’s cooperation with the ICC. The attorney general of Kenya, Githu Muigal also disavowed the letter saying Kenya is not a party to the cases and has reaffirmed Kenyan cooperation with the ICC.

On May 13, the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, rejected the Kenyan government’s claim that it is cooperating with the court. Specifically, she said that the government failed to provide certain financial records and has not facilitated interviews that could provide her with information about the role of the police in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. Earlier, she said that the government failed to provide adequate protection for potential witnesses and that bribery and intimidation played a role in the withdrawal of potential witnesses.

The ICC charges against Kenyatta and Ruto were an issue in the 2013 Kenyan elections and popular backlash against the Court probably helped them. Many Kenyans seemed to think the charges would be dropped in the aftermath of an election victory, probably at the instigation of the United States and the United Kingdom because of the importance of their ties with Kenya and Nairobi’s crucial role in Somalia. In fact, UK prime minster David Cameron hosted Kenyatta in London at the May 7 Somalia conference. The UK argued Kenyatta’s presence was “essential,” and, in effect, trumped British policy to have only “essential contact” with Kenyatta and Ruto. However, Africa Confidential credibly speculates that President Obama will skip Kenya during his next Africa trip and suggests, also credibly, that there will be a cooling of relations between Kenya and the UK and the U.S.

The ICC has agreed to postpone Ruto’s trial until October. Many observers think that the ICC case against him is stronger than that against Kenyatta. If the ICC were to convict one and acquit the other, there could be serious political consequences in Kenya. Kenyatta is a leader of the Kikuyu, Ruto of the Kalenjin. The two ethnic groups have long been rivals, and fighting among them was an important element in the 2007 violence. Then, Kenyatta and Ruto were on opposite sides. For 2013, they made a political alliance, and there was little fighting between Kikuyu and Kalenjin, a factor in the largely peaceful elections. A Ruto conviction and a Kenyatta acquittal might put at risk the current truce between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu.

Having cut short a trip to South Africa and annulled a planned state visit to Namibia, President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a “state of emergency” in the three northern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. In announcing this step, Jonathan acknowledged that there is an “insurrection” in northeast Nigeria, and that the government has lost control of certain geographic areas to “Boko Haram,” a defuse Islamist movement.

It remains to be seen if the declaration will have any practical effect. Jonathan has promised to increase the number of troops operating in the three states, but it is unclear where he will find them. The military is overstretched already. It is not clear whether Nigeria has even met its commitment to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for a Mali force that is being placed under the UN authority. In his declaration, Jonathan indicated that he will be seeking international support; already at the Baga massacre Nigerien and Chadian forces were involved, as well as Nigerian.

During previous states of emergency, the state governor was removed. This time, Jonathan has stated explicitly that the governors and other officials of the three states are to continue to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. Borno and Yobe have governors from the opposition ANPP. Adamawa’s governor is from Jonathan’s PDP.

According to the Nigerian media, traditional opinion leaders in the North opposed a state of emergency. However, in the immediate aftermath of Jonathan’s declaration they have been cautious. Within the National Assembly, which must approve a declaration of a state of emergency, there appears to be support for Jonathan’s move.

The declaration of a state of emergency may be linked to proposals of an amnesty for Boko Haram–the amnesty would play the carrot to the state of emergency’s stick. Jonathan earlier established a committee to explore the modalities for a possible amnesty. Thus far, however, Islamist spokesmen have shown no interest. Over the weekend an alleged Boko Haram spokesman said that there would be no talks unless or until the government released the Boko Haram women and children it is holding. Islamists are themselves now kidnapping women and children, apparently holding them as hostages for the release of their own.

Jonathan’s acknowledgement that there is an insurrection in the North is a step toward realism. Up to now, the government has treated Boko Haram as terrorist episodes. However, the declaration of a state of emergency appears to be a further step toward responding to the crisis in the North through military rather than political means. In the aftermath of the massacre at Baga and the New York Times reports of masses of corpses in Maiduguri; the increased militancy is a step backward. Up to now, the brutality of the Nigerian security services appears to generate support for the Islamists. That could continue.

President Goodluck Jonathan has refused to say whether he will run for the presidency in 2015, although many Nigerians expect he will. The current efforts among the opposition parties to come together behind a single presidential candidate is based on the assumption that Jonathan will run.

Jonathan may not have much choice. His constituency in the southern half of the country and among fellow Christians is likely to insist on it. A notorious Delta militant and thug, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, posted a reminder on May 6 of that reality. In a rambling and often incoherent press conference, he said that if Jonathan, a fellow Ijaw, is not re-elected in 2015, not only will there be no peace in the oil-rich Niger Delta, there will be no peace anywhere in Nigeria:

“I want to go on to say that there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015 except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for. Jonathan has uninterrupted eight years of two terms to be president, according to the Nigeria constitution.” According to Nigerian media, he said, “we will continue to support and stand by Goodluck.”

In effect, Dokubo Asari’s statement is a threat of renewed Delta violence and is directed at those who would try to deny Jonathan the ruling party’s presidential nomination or those who would vote for an opposition presidential candidate.

The threat is credible. Dokubo Asari is a former president of the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) and leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDVF), one of the most important militant organizations involved in the Delta insurrection during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. The fighting ended with an amnesty established by President Yar’Adua and has continued under President Jonathan. The amnesty involved limited disarmament, retraining, and re-integration of militants. It also involved massive payoffs to militant leaders like Dokubo Asari. But, militant groups like the NDVF have not disbanded, they appear to retain access to sophisticated weapons, and they could relaunch mayhem at any time.

Dokubo Asari was born into a distinguished Christian family. He converted to Islam when he dropped out of university. The conversion appears personal rather than political because few Ijaw are Muslim, and the Muslim population in the Delta–the center of Dokubo Asari’s activities–is very small. He claims to be a friend of President Jonathan. He regularly denounces the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria, saying that Boko Haram and its nominal leader Abubakar Shekau are un-Islamic because of their “arrogance,” especially for their call for Jonathan’s conversion to Islam. He also denounces the mal-governance of Nigeria by a succession of northern military leaders. He is a reminder that southern bitterness toward the north is based on more than anti-Islam sentiments.

Simukai Tinhu analyzes the staying power of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party in a thoughtful article, “Zimbabwe: Mugabe’s Will to Power.” It was published in ThinkAfrica Press on May 9. Also a “must-read” is the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) report “Zimbabwe Elections Scenarios;” it appeared May 6.

The ICG provides a thorough briefing on Zimbabwean legal developments in the run-up to the next elections, a review of domestic politics, and an analysis of the role of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)—with recommendations to Zimbabwe’s “stakeholders.” The ICG report will be widely used as a quick reference.

Tinhu’s much shorter article is an analysis of the sources of Mugabe’s power: manipulation of the voters, intimidation, violence, domination of the media, wholesale abuse of the rule of law, and very good organization. And then there is the charismatic personality of Robert Mugabe, one of Africa’s last surviving “liberation” leaders.

However, in addition, Tinhu cites more subtle advantages. Among those he discusses are:

1) As the most powerful party, ZANU-PF attracts the most skillful politicians. They have created a popular, anti-Western ideology. Support from the West (whether governments, non-governmental organizations, or individuals) for opposition movements or figures only undercuts them and strengthens ZANU-PF.

2) ZANU-PF has a big, permanent support base among rural peasants.

3) ZANU-PF openly plays the race card, using propaganda to the effect that the opposition is seeking the return of “white rule” and conniving with foreigners to loot the country.

Moreover, Tinhu argues credibly that ZANU-PF’s greatest source of strength is cohesion among its elites. He says that in return for their loyalty, ZANU-PF tolerates elite corruption. However, if an individual or faction starts to behave independently, the party passes evidence of corruption to an attorney general. So, corruption keeps talented elites in the party—and prevents them leaving.

Tinhu sees Robert Mugabe as essential to the unity of ZANU-PF polity, but, once he dies, all bets are off. He discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Mugabe’s most likely successors, again according to conventional wisdom: Emmerson Mnangagwa and Joice Mujuru. However, he identifies a new “dark horse,” Saviour Kasukuwere, minister of youth and Mugabe’s point man for “indigenizing” foreign-owned enterprises.

Tinhu’s piece, read with the International Crisis Group report, provides background and analysis as to where Zimbabwe is now and what some of the options for the future might be. Both are a useful corrective to the view that Mugabe is so awful that his government could not survive absent repression. The reality is that many Zimbabweans support Mugabe and ZANU-PF out of conviction as well as fear. A central reality of Zimbabwe is land hunger. Mugabe drove the whites off the land by riding roughshod over the rule of law and destroying the economy, in the short turn. But from the perspective of many Africans, he achieved justice. This provides him a strong support base, which he augments through corruption and coercion.

With Mali’s implosion, Islamic extremism in the Sahel, and the “Boko Haram” insurgency in Nigeria’s north drawing international attention, the Niger Delta has dropped off the radar of many West Africa watchers. Yet, only five years ago an insurrection there resulted in a major reduction in Nigeria’s oil production and impacted on state revenue. In 2009, then-president Umaru Yar’Adua introduced an “amnesty” that has been continued by President Goodluck Jonathan and ended (or at least reined-in) that cycle of violence. The United States Institute for Peace has just published an assessment of the amnesty by Aaron Sayne. The report is based on a wide range of interviews, but he cautions that it not a rigorous assessment of the amnesty’s success because the necessary data is absent. Nevertheless, the tone of his report is positive.

Sayne sees the amnesty as having resulted in a significant cut in armed attacks on oil installations and a fall in expatriate kidnappings. Oil production has increased substantially. He suggests that the retraining of many former militants and their subsequent job placement has had “demonstrable, if somewhat limited success.”

Sayne characterizes some of the conventional criticism of the amnesty as misplaced. He acknowledges that the amnesty does not establish a political process to address Delta issues, but, he argues, that function is beyond the scope of an amnesty. He does not accept that amnesty payoffs to militant leaders has transformed them into warlords, and maintains that the Nigerian state retains a greater degree of control over the Delta than has been the case for territories of other states afflicted with warlordism, such as Liberia, Somalia, or Afghanistan.

Readers will find especially useful his discussion of various scenarios for renewal of violence in the run up to the elections of 2015. They will take heart from his conclusion that a violent upsurge, while possible, is by no means inevitable. His conclusion: “despite many worrying signals, a return to major violent conflict (in the Delta) does not look inevitable at this point. The road ahead is far too busy for doomsday forecasts, and Nigeria tends to embarrass those who predict its imminent unraveling.”

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, a research analyst at The Jamestown Foundation, and Atta Barkindo, a Ph.D. candidate, SOAS, University of London.

Since launching an insurgency in northern Nigeria in September 2010, Boko Haram leader Abu Shekau and his spokesmen have issued more than thirty statements to the Nigerian press and recorded a number of videos to claim attacks. In Shekau’s and other Boko Haram leaders’ pre-2010 sermons, the languages they use are Hausa and Arabic, not English. Shekau goes so far as to claim that the English language in northern Nigeria destroyed the traditional Arabic language education system for the region’s Muslims. We have reviewed Boko Haram sermons from before 2010, and our conclusions below are directly based on our interpretation of them in their original languages. We believe a study of these sermons is an important source for understanding the evolving Islamic insurgency in northern Nigeria that has been mostly overlooked, in part because their languages make them inaccessible to most Western observers.

Boko Haram’s target audience for its propaganda has often been northern Nigerians, especially those who live in the border towns between Nigeria and neighboring Niger, Cameroon, and Chad. In Boko Haram videos and statements, Shekau and his spokesmen have tried to explain away–and even justify–the deaths of innocent Muslims in Boko Haram attacks. That Christians, the Nigerian government and security forces, and the United States, including President Obama, have become Boko Haram’s main enemies is clear in Boko Haram’s messaging.

However, what is less understood about Boko Haram is the ideology that its three main leaders espoused before 2010, including late founder Muhammad Yusuf, Shekau, and the Cameroonian Muhammad (Mamman) Nur; who according to the Nigerian media and State Security Service masterminded the August 2011 bombing of the UN Headquarters in Abuja after training in Somalia. Before 2010, they were all salafist imams preaching mostly in the Ibn Taymiyya Mosque of Boko Haram’s base state of Borno in far northeastern Nigeria. Listening to the recordings of their speeches in Hausa and Kanuri helps us understand Boko Haram ideology at a time when its leaders were speaking candidly and not issuing the type of propaganda that the group has issued since launching the insurgency in September 2010.

Here are the key characteristics of Yusuf, Shekau, and Nur’s sermons from 2009, or earlier.

Yusuf: There is no doubt Yusuf organized and transformed the ideological basis of the emerging Boko Haram before his execution in 2009. His sermons suggest that there is a need for the spiritual and moral renewal of Muslims in Nigeria and that the current Muslim leadership has failed them. His statements show that he was a salafist and sympathizer of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. He rejected secularism and western civilization, and he was committed to jihad to cleanse the Nigerian state of corruption and impunity, while also seeking to establish an independent Islamic state within Nigeria.

Nur: Muhammad Nur appears to be more radical, aggressive, and internationally oriented than Yusuf. He believes Nigerian Muslims must counter secularism in Nigeria in every way possible, including jihad, and he speaks out against what he believes is the domination of the Muslim world by the West. Nur symbolizes the crossroads of Boko Haram from local salafism into international jihadism, which is consistent with the attack he allegedly masterminded on the UN (all other Boko Haram attacks up to that point were on Nigerian targets).

Shekau: Shekau comes across as a very persuasive speaker, excellent in classical Arabic and well versed in Islamic scholarship. He could be regarded as the key thinker and ideological weaver of the group, especially where his sermons show a synthesis of local salafist preaching with calls for international jihadism and breaking down the Western and U.S.-led world order. He venerates hard line salafists from Ibn Taymiyya to Osama Bin Laden, and his sermons suggest that he is a political instrumentalist who manipulates religious memory to advance jihad in the modern day against the Nigerian government.

The May 8 New York Times carries above the fold an Adam Nossiter story, “Bodies Pour in as Nigeria Rounds Up Islamists.” The story mostly consists of horrific reports of Nigerian security services (army and police) abuses of Northern Nigerian citizens, alleged members of or connected to Boko Haram, a radical Islamic insurgency. Nossiter notes that Boko Haram is “thoroughly enmeshed” in the local population making it difficult to root out the insurgents. He observes that security service brutality “…has turned many residents against the military, driving some toward the insurgency…” The security services and the Jonathan administration in Abuja continue to flatly deny that any abuses are happening, much less systematically carried out; despite the testimony of a wide range of credible northern observers.

Many of us have heard reports similar to Nossiter’s from Nigerian contacts for some time. Human Rights Watch also issued a report that, in effect, argued that the International Criminal Court should investigate both Boko Haram and the security services for crimes against humanity. For a long time I have heard that the security services round up large numbers of young men who simply disappear. They are never formally arrested, prosecuted, tried or, if convicted, punished. They simply disappear, outside the justice system altogether. I had assumed that most so detained were quietly released after a time, in part because there were few reports of mass graves. To some extent, that may be true. But, Nossiter’s grim report confirms what many local people say; that in fact, many are murdered. The disposal of so many corpses is posing a problem.

The Council’s Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) has long followed security service abuses in northern Nigeria. NST data—current through April 30—confirms that violence involving Boko Haram and the security services continues to escalate in northern Nigeria. April 2013 had the highest death toll since the NST started, in May 2011. The numbers of dead that Nossiter saw are a reflection of the escalating carnage.

Among the security services, training is often poor or non-existent; pay is also poor. As a matter of policy, soldiers and police are deployed outside their region of origin. Hence, security service personnel often have little understanding or sympathy for the populations they are supposed to protect. Literally, many don’t even speak the same language. But, such factors are no excuse: the security services, an arm of a state with democratic aspirations, must be held to a higher standard than vicious insurgents. Boko Haram terror is no justification for what Nossiter and others report the security services are doing. And the government’s stonewalling is counterproductive.

New York Times coverage will raise the profile of Nigeria’s dirty war in the United States. Hopefully there will be more American political pressure on the Jonathan administration to take concrete steps to control its security services.

This is a guest post by Owen Cylke. Mr. Cylke is a development professional and a retired senior foreign service officer with USAID.

A spate of press articles over the past several months speculate on the quality and direction of development in Africa. For the most part, the articles reflect the establishment view that things are looking brighter; but brighter for whom?

For politicians who look for any sign of progress that might generate electoral capital? For investors who take advantage of promising reports and then lobby for ever-increasing favorable treatment in regulatory regimes? Or for international consulting organizations that would build on optimism for their marketing efforts? But certainly not brighter for the poor who continue to hover at the 50 percent breakpoint–50 percent earning more or less than $1.25 a day. Certainly not for the burgeoning populations of young people seeking employment off-farm and in Africa’s cities.

Indeed, if there is a singular sign of weakness on the development front, it is the African disconnect from the global experience and historical association that industrialization and urbanization create higher and more productive levels of employment and contributions to national GDP.

While the international development community remains preoccupied with agriculture and the rural sector, African heads of state are looking beyond that to a larger and historically grounded understanding of the development process–a process known as economic transformation. Their understanding is that the real test for development will be found in the extent to which economies can successfully move labor and resources into activities with high and increasing levels of productivity. And it is widely recognized that these activities are more likely to be in the industrial and urban rather than agricultural and rural sectors.

It is true, even paradoxical, that the modernization of the agricultural sector is key to the desired transformation. But the failure of the development community to engage on a larger development agenda makes the transition from agriculture to industry, from rural to urban settlement, and from self-employment to formal wage employment difficult. Labor may well still flow out of agriculture; indeed it will. But in the absence of deliberate and targeted policies, it will be absorbed largely into the informal sector where the scope for sustained growth in productivity and incomes is limited. In the spatial dimension, that spells slums.

Just last week, the New Partnership for African Development’s (NEPAD) Planning and Coordination Agency (NPCA) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) hosted a continental forum in Cotonou, Benin to further advance the intent of African leadership to achieve the long sought transition from an entrenched agricultural and rural development model to one that supports more productive industrial and urban activity. UNECA has recently also published a report on the importance and prospects for economic transformation in Africa as input to the debate surrounding the Millennium Development Goals post 2015.

This disconnect is now finding voice in the international community. New and established voices on the development front are contributing to the discussion. Writing in Foreign Policy, Rick Rowden notes that African economies are not generating the kind of employment off-farm that Asia did as part of its Green Revolution that lifted millions out of poverty. And the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Alumni is sponsoring a workshop in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center on May 22 directed to “Agriculture, Structural Change, and the Urban Imperative.”

This is a guest post by Tiffany Lynch, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed are her own and may or may not reflect the views of the Commission.

For almost two years, stories about violence in Nigeria have focused almost exclusively on Boko Haram’s attacks on churches and Christians; police stations and other government buildings; schools and politicians; and Muslim critics. Forgotten is Nigeria’s longer and more deadly history of religiously-related violence. Too much analysis of Boko Haram fails to take into account how Nigeria’s history of Muslim-Christian violence directly contributes to the Boko Haram phenomenon.

Since 1999, more than fourteen thousand Nigerians in the Middle Belt and north have been killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and thousands of churches, mosques, and other property destroyed in Muslim and Christian communal violence. However, lack of political will and jurisdictional disputes to prosecute perpetrators of the violence means that almost universally, those responsible for the violence remain free. In more than a decade, fewer than two hundred individuals have been prosecuted for their involvement in sectarian violence, despite available video and photographic evidence. Rather than prosecute, federal and state officials have repeatedly formed commissions of inquiry to review the causes of the violence and make recommendations to prevent further violence. But these recommendations are rarely implemented.

This failure to prosecute has created a climate of impunity with dangerous consequences. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where I serve as senior policy analyst, has drawn attention to this in our recently released Annual Report on Nigeria. USCIRF found that a lack of consequences for violence gives a green light for future depredations. An incident sparking Muslim-Christian violence can trigger retaliatory ricochet riots in other areas.

Pour the gasoline of Boko Haram attacks onto this already burning fire and the consequences of religiously-related violence become even more dangerous. Boko Haram is using this culture of impunity as a recruitment tool—young Muslim men, angered by the government’s failure to address violence, respond to the call of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau to attack Christians in “retaliation.” They are joining Boko Haram to attack churches and individual Christians. In fact, many of Boko Haram’s most deadly and prominent church service attacks in 2012 occurred in cities with problematic Muslim-Christian relations and histories of sectarian violence: Bauchi, Jos, and Kaduna.

Policy recommendations to tackle Boko Haram have focused on addressing political and economic marginalization in the north and ending abuses by security forces. Yet, the U.S. and Nigerian governments should focus on ending impunity and addressing Nigeria’s problem of Muslim-Christian violence. Boko Haram is feeding off of and fueling Nigeria’s history of religious related violence, adding momentum to an already vicious cycle. The United States needs to press its ally to do more, so this cycle is interrupted and perpetrators are brought to justice.