The kidnapping of at least 140 schoolchildren in the north-west of Nigeria is the latest crime to shake a country already struggling to contain militants in the north and separatists in the south. Add to this young protesters on the streets amid rising food prices and crime and the security situation in the country starts to look even shakier.

Charmaine Cozier examines the deeper reasons for Nigeria’s worsening instability and asks if Africa’s largest country is becoming impossible to govern.

Producers Soila Apparicio and Rob Cave


(A young girl reunites with family after she was kidnapped from her school in northwestern Nigeria March 2021. Photo: Aminu Abubakar/Getty Images)