Nigerian politics are at a crossroads. Or perhaps a better metaphor is that they stand teetering on a precipice. With Goodluck Jonathan set to run for re-election (and for his first election on his own since taking over after Umaru Yar-Adua’s death) the precarious wink-and-nod arrangement whereby presidential power alternates between the North and the South is about to be shattered in a possible maelstrom of religious and ethnically driven political violence. There is a serious debate as to whether such violence will happen.
Of course that violence is only going to come if the will of the electorate chooses another southerner in the form of Jonathan, which seems likely, and if the response is then violent clashes from the losing side. In other words, presenting the pending conflict as a systemic one is largely inaccurate — it is systemic only inasmuch as those who will destabilize the system will then blame that system for fomenting violence. In other words, this historical moment, like all historical moments, is contingent, not inevitable.
