This House Has Fallen

by Karl Maier

"This House Has Fallen is a report on the perilous condition of one of the most complex multi-ethnic nations. The world's tenth most populous country with 110 million inhabitants, a potpourri of languages and people, and boundless dynamism, the West African state of Nigeria is a pivot point for the continent, like Brazil in South America or Indonesia in Southeast Asia. As Nigeria goes, so goes Africa, and, as Karl Maier makes vividly clear, things are not going well at all. Each year, with depressing consistency, Nigeria is declared one of the most corrupt countries in the world. A nation into which billions of dollars of oil money flow, Nigeria's per capita income has plummeted during the past two decades, while the bulk of the money has been stolen by elites. Nigeria's leaders have tended to elect themselves, by bullet and not ballot, with military coup following military coup. A country of rapidly rising ethnic and religious tensions and rapidly falling living standards, the pressur