March 13, 2015 Issue

The man the Chadian army calls ‘The Butcher’ kneels before a cache of weapons, pickup trucks and motorcycles captured from Boko Haram. He is accused of beheading or slashing the throats of five people in the name of Islam. In the fight against the bloodthirsty Islamist militants, there have so far been few victories and the Nigerian government seems at a loss to stem the unremitting tide of violence they have caused – having been responsible for the deaths of more than 13,000 people over the past five years, according to President Goodluck Jonathan.