What various forms of bodily deportment can teach us about power and authority in Africa.

Horrendous killing of college sophomore highlights the country’s ethnoreligious fault line, but interdenominational rivalry in the south is of no less moment. All in all, reactions to the murder of Ms. Deborah Yakubu, a 200-level home economics student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, have exposed Nigeria’s deepest political fractures and lingering questions over citizenship, national identity, and secularity. On May 12, following disagreement over a WhatsApp voice note deemed to have been blasphemous against Islam and Prophet Muhammad, a mob comprising some of the twenty-two-year-old’s schoolmates brutally clubbed and stoned her to death, after which they proceeded to incinerate her body.

Nigerians are increasingly frustrated at the growing disconnect between the political class and ordinary people.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C. based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor for the West Point CTC Sentinel. April 2013 m…