麻豆约拍

Recent kidnappings of schoolchildren in the north-west of Nigeria are the latest crimes to shake a country already struggling to contain militants in the north and separatists in the south. The authorities say recent attacks on schools in the north-west have been carried out by "bandits", a loose term for kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen and other armed militia operating in the region who are largely motivated by money.

Bulama Bukarti, a senior analyst on sub-Saharan Africa at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and a columnist for Nigerian newspaper The Daily Trust, explains how the various groups in Nigeria have created a crisis of instability. He outlines how the activities of the jihadist group Boko Haram, a separatist group called The Indigenous People of Biafra, the Niger Delta avengers, whose declared ambition is to get control of the oil wealth in the country, and Fulani Muslims in the south west, have all led to "constant concern, even panic, in some parts of Nigeria, daily."

Photo: A mother of a girl kidnapped by Boko Haram pleads for her release, Nigeria Credit: Getty Images