Nigeria is set for what may well be one of the most momentous years in its history. Even as Acting President Goodluck Jonathan promises that the country’s 2011 elections will be free and fair his own status continues to be riddled with question marks. The reality is that it seems clear that President Umaru Yar’Adua’s health situation is not going to allow him to resume his duties. So Jonathan, who has shown considerable signs of being an activist and potentially quite effective leader, will presumably be President for a while and will likely toss his hat in the ring for next year’s polls. But one of the country’s largely unspoken agreements is that leadership rotates between North and South, and Jonathan’s election on his own right would disrupt that pattern and in so doing would open up one of the country’s most fraught fissures, which captures ongoing geographic, religious, and ethnic divides.
