An Epidemic of Kidnapping: Interpreting School Abductions and Insecurity in Nigeria - African Studies Quarterly

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

By: Aly Verjee

News Type: USIP in the News

Attacks on Nigerian school students from December 2020 to August 2021 saw hundreds of children abducted and prompted a national outcry at the state’s seeming inability to prevent such events. This recent wave of abductions follows other notorious incidents of mass abduction and murder of students, most prominently the cases of the Chibok and Dapchi girls. In assessing the more recent abductions, the authorities and some analysts have made a distinction between contemporary and earlier episodes on the basis of the perceived identity of the perpetrators...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Ethiopia’s crisis on the Blue Nile - The Lowy Institute

Thursday, October 14, 2021

By: Aly Verjee

News Type: USIP in the News

Amid an increasingly bitter war and an impending famine in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, there is still, perhaps, one issue that unites Ethiopians, no matter their political views: that their country has the absolute right to develop and use its hydroelectric potential on the Blue Nile (or as the river is named in Ethiopia, the Abay). And that potential is on the cusp of being realised...

Fragility & Resilience

Boko Haram, School Abductions, and Security Discourse in Nigeria - Aly Verjee and Chris Kwaja

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

By: Aly Verjee

News Type: USIP in the News

Much has been written about the Boko Haram terrorist organization. The group has conducted numerous violent attacks since 2009, and the Nigerian state's failure to contain the insurgency is a prominent theme of discussion in national politics. Among the most notorious of Boko Haram's attacks are three mass abductions and three mass murders of Nigerian students, conducted in the space of just seven years...

Justice, Security & Rule of Law

Political transitions in Sudan and Ethiopia: an early comparative analysis - Global Change, Peace & Security

Friday, August 6, 2021

By: Aly Verjee

News Type: USIP in the News

This article presents a comparative analysis of the political transitions occurring in neighbours Ethiopia and Sudan since 2018. To date, these political transitions have largely been analysed independently. While the transition in Sudan is often characterised as a revolution, events in Ethiopia are not usually so described. However...

Democracy & Governance