First visited by the Portuguese in the 1500s, Cameroon was eventually colonized first by the Germans from 1884 to 1916 and later by the French and British until independence in 1960 and 1961. The division of the former German colony between the French and the British after Germany’s defeat during World War I laid the foundation for a complex postindependence history of Cameroon. This complexity, chaperoned by two presidents, has witnessed a trajectory that starts with a federation and continues with Cameroon becoming a republic that was increasingly challenged by separatists of the former British section. External challenges from a war with Nigeria over Bakassi as well as conflicts with Boko Haram have only made the process of nation-building more complexed.
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Political History of Cameroon
Emmanuel M. Mbah
Article
History of Nigeria
Matthew M. Heaton
The region of West Africa currently delineated by the boundaries of the independent country of Nigeria has a long, rich, and complex history exhibiting dramatic political, economic, social, and cultural change over time. Archaeological evidence of indigenous communities dates back to at least 8000 bce. Early states and societies took a variety of different forms and developed significant interaction among each other and through long-distance trade networks in the savannahs and coastal regions. The 19th century saw the encroachment of British colonialism, which ultimately produced the territory of Nigeria in 1914. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, but the country has been beset by significant political instability and economic underdevelopment. As a result, the process of developing a national historical narrative has been complex and contested in a country whose borders were largely established by alien colonial rulers and that has since been beset by a variety of internal divisions with differing relationships to Nigeria as a corporate entity. This complexity is reflected in the dynamics of Nigerian historiography and the primary source bases upon which historical scholarship has relied.
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Boko Haram: History and Context
Hilary Matfess
Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as “Boko Haram,” is the most violent phenomenon of the Nigerian Fourth Republic. It is responsible not only for a regional food crisis that has devolved into famine in some areas, but also the displacement of millions and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The insurgency in Nigeria began as a dissident religious sect’s venting of local grievances in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeastern Borno State. The movement was founded at the turn of the century by Mohammed Yusuf, a Salafist preacher notorious for his rejection of Western education and government employment.
Boko Haram only gained significant international attention in the aftermath of the 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from their dormitory in the remote town of Chibok, but the group did not always employ such deplorable tactics. Although policymakers in capitals the world over have been eager to emphasize the group’s connections to international terrorist groups, the movement is localized and often more akin to an African insurgency than to a prototypical terrorist organization. The group’s initial years were characterized by relatively benign activities like the provision of social services, punctuated by occasional bouts of criminality that, over time, escalated into a series of targeted assassinations that provoked federal government response. A series of violent actions ultimately transformed Boko Haram from a largely nonviolent fundamentalist religious movement into the lethal and resilient force it is today, known internationally for its brutality: notably, the group’s interactions with the Nigerian security sector, categorized by indiscriminate state violence; leadership changes within the insurgency’s ranks that elevated Abubakar Shekau following Mohammed Yusuf’s execution; and regional trends in weapons flows and ideological currents.
