An insurgency in Nigeria by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has left thousands dead
shaken Africa's biggest country and worried the world. Yet they remain a mysterious almost
unknowable organisation. Through exhaustive on-the-ground reporting M.J. Smith takes readers
inside the violence and provides the first in-depth account of the conflict. He traces Boko
Haram from its beginnings as a small Islamist sect in Nigeria's remote northeast led by a
baby-faced but charismatic preacher to its transformation into a hydra-headed monster
deploying suicide bombers and abducting innocent schoolgirls. Much of the book is told through
the eyes of Nigerians who have found themselves caught between the violence of a shadowy group
of insurgents brutal security forces accused of horrifying abuses and an inept government led
by an accidental president. It includes the voices of a forgotten police officer left paralysed
by an attack women whose husbands have been murdered and a sword-wielding vigilante using
charms to fend off insurgent bullets. It journeys through the sleaze and corruption that has
robbed Africa's biggest oil producer of its potential making it such fertile ground for
extremism. Along the way it questions whether there can be any end to the violence and the ways
in which this might be achieved. Interspersed with history this book delves into the roots of
this unholy war being waged against the backdrop of an evolving extremist threat worldwide.
