Here’s my re-cap of last week’s Supreme Court ruling, for the New York Times.

LAGOS, Nigeria — The last legal challenge to the legitimacy of President Umaru Yar’Adua was quashed by the Supreme Court last week, but he and Nigeria are far from out of the woods.

Although Mr. Yar’Adua, a former governor from a remote northern state, finally has a firm mandate to take charge of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and oil-rich country, he has accomplished so little in the 19 months since his flawed election that few believe that he can.

For a less jokey take, here’s my piece about the ruling in the International Herald Tribune.

Here’s a piece I wrote for Time, one week after the Jos clashes.

(Photo by yours truly)

A journal for the NYTimes I worked on last month about a tenuous peace in Delta State, Nigeria and the controversial decisions by leaders there to give militants leadership positions inside the government.

(photo by yours truly)

ESCRAVOS, Nigeria — As dusk approached and the glow from the oil rig gas flares grew stronger, the oilmen, politicians and militants arrived by boat in small groups to celebrate the opening of 911 Resort, a half-finished villa accessible only by boat at the outer edge of the creeks of the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Among the crowd at the resort — which takes its name from Operation 911, the Nigerian military’s original campaign against the militants — state ministers mingled with American oil contractors and Lebanese businessmen chatted up militants-turned-local politicians before they all sat down at long tables cluttered with bottles of wine and Champagne. Hundreds of villagers watched from behind a barbed-wire fence prowled by guard dogs as comedians and musicians entertained the guests.

Here’s the link to my recent NYTimes story on violence in the Nigerian city of Jos. This is a beautiful place, sad to see it torn apart by political and religious in-fighting.

(photo by my boy Sunday of the AP)

JOS, Nigeria — Neighborhood residents did not know on Monday whose charred body still lay in the living room of the burned-down house underneath rocks and piles of corrugated tin.

“They had just arrived,” said Femi Olayinka, 32, whose small hotel next door had also been burned to the ground. “We didn’t know them yet. We think they just got trapped in the house and then burned to death.”