Nigeria, May 28 -- Across Nigeria today, the evidence of state failure is no longer hidden behind press releases or military jargon. In the North-West, bandits have turned communities into tax-paying fiefdoms.

In the North-East, insurgents are rebuilding their caliphate, village by village. In the Middle Belt, communal militias and herder-farmer clashes have turned farmlands into graveyards, with entire districts abandoned after cycles of reprisal. In the South-East, gunmen strike with impunity, and in the South-South, oil theft funds an armed rebellion that no one dares to confront. In the South-West, criminal gangs and herdsmen have turned highways into hostage arenas, while cults and land grabbers operate as shadow governors in spraw...