Formation tracks the unlikely series of events and characters that led to the creation of the modern Nigerian nation: from 1804 when the first Jihadists began their attack on a collection of independent nations to 1914 when the current shape of Nigeria was completed as a British colony through amalgamation.

Formation sheds light on an increasingly forgotten and largely mythologised period of Nigeria's history; revealing an incredibly complicated portrait of a nation with a tangled history, where violence was and remains a primary organising principle for elite competition and political negotiations. Influential figures loom large over the narrative including: Usman dan Fodio, Modibbo Adama, Fred Lugard, Samuel Ajayi-Crowther, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Flora Shaw, Joseph Chamberlain alongside other well-known and many less familiar names.