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

[A poorly thought out and poorly timed monetary policy sends Nigeria into a tailspin.]

A rare positive note as Nigeria spirals into a state of lawlessness is the unintended return to the front burner of longstanding issues around governance at the subnational level. Until now, such issues have bubbled under the surface, receiving fleeting attention only when the country’s perennial crisis threatens to boil over, only to subside as soon as a temporary fix is found. Penultimate week, after still unidentified assailants opened fire on an Abuja-Kaduna train, killing eight passengers and kidnapping tens of others for ransom, Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, emerging from a private meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, threatened to do whatever it takes to protect lives and property across the state, including “importing mercenaries from outside the country to do it.”

On Monday March 28, 2022, some gunmen launched a deadly attack on a Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) Abuja-Kaduna evening train carrying an estimated 398 passengers. After detonating explosives on the track (and possibly inside the train according to conflicting reports in the local media), the gunmen surrounded the immobilized train and started discharging their firearms into the carriages. It took at least an hour before a detachment of the Nigerian military came to the rescue of the passengers, who had cowered under their seats as the bandits fired incessantly. The incident left at least eight people dead—among them a young medical doctor Chinelo Megafu and Musa Lawal-Ozigi, secretary-general of the country’s Trade Union Congress—and at least another forty-one hospitalized, while the yet unidentified assailants also captured some of the passengers.

Conflicts in northwest Nigeria over access to minerals—especially gold—are heating up. Illicit mining also causes environmental damage, thus exacerbating land and water shortages that cause further conflict.