Acknowledgments

This book has zig-zagged its way to publication.Along the way, it mutated, expanded, and shrank.It was also enriched by many conversations and archives.One colleague who contributed the most to the conversations that shaped aspects of this book is Abdulbasit Kassim.When I recruited him into the project as a coauthor, he was deeply committed to its realization.Over several years, in several conversations, he engaged me on different aspects of the Boko Haram insurgency.Unfortunately, he had to withdraw as coauthor for personal reasons.As I drafted and redrafted the chapters of this book, our conversations replayed in my head, and his published works on Boko Haram provided a rich intellectual reference for my analyses and explorations.The book took almost a decade to conceptualize, write, revise, and bring to publication.During that time, I accumulated a lot of intellectual debt.Farooq Kperogi, Toyin Falola, and many other Nigerianist colleagues expanded my perspectives and horizons.