LAGOS, Nigeria— Next year Nigeria will stop doing most other things for a month, and the nation's attention will be focused exclusively on a series of state and national elections.

The elections, officials here believe, will devour energies, consume passions and put to the test a tangled democracy that sees itself as a model for black-ruled Africa and proof to the world of a continent's political maturity.

The elections are still nine months away, but the visitor to this torrid capital of five million people might think they were under way now, so intense is Nigeria's perennial political fervor.

Through the magnifying prism of the nation's self-perception, the voting will encompass forces and emotions on the grand scale. Roughly one-quarter of sub-Saharan Africa's 350 million people will somehow or other be touched by the national vote, and the victor will control black-ruled Africa's greatest wealth.

Second Chance at Power

The elections in Nigeria's 19 states involve chunks of land that are, in some cases, more populous and wealthy than many independent African nations. Old and revered names from the past will be pitted against one another in a contest for that most elusive of African phenomena - a second chance to win political power.

Underlying it all will be the powerful chemistry of tribe, personality and money. No one expects it to be a tranquil affair, and it is in the Nigerian manner that the voting, which elsewhere in Africa might take a day or two, will span four straight weeks.

The polling will be the second since the military withdrew in 1979 after 13 years in power, and the first in which the civilians themselves are entrusted with the task of monitoring their own probity. That will be no easy job because Nigeria is probably Africa's most patent example of commercial corruption and unrestrained political jousting - expressions, in part, of the high stakes created by the nation's now reduced, but nonetheless substantial, oil revenues.

The assessment among Western diplomats and Nigerian officials is that the military would only seek to take a more direct role in the elections if the civilian authorities were unable to cope with untrammeled pre-electoral violence, or if there was an upsurge of unrest wider than the recent trouble in the predominantly Islamic north that engulfed three cities.

The election-year forecast among many Nigerians and Westerners is that President Shehu Shagari, wielding the powers bestowed by incumbency and supported by an efficient party machine and money, will be returned for a second four-year term - the last he is allowed under the Constitution.

Under the complex voting procedures, however, opposition figures may well be able to increase their clout in state governorships, state assemblies and the federal legislature, augmenting their opportunities to carve a slice of the patronage and largesse that provide a driving political force in this wealth-conscious nation.

On their side is an arithmetical formula that sharpens the contest. To become President, a candidate must win a plurality of the national vote and must, too, win at least 25 percent of the vote in 13 of the 19 states. This is designed to prevent hegemony by any one of the three main tribal groups. Opposition Hopes for Runoff

In 1979 President Shagari's National Party of Nigeria took at least 25 percent of the vote in 12 states and was deemed by a court decision to have been the winner. The opposition strategy this time, if one can be perceived so early in the competition, is to try to force a runoff that will permit political trading. And, if there is a source of unity among the President's foes, it is limited to a desire to undermine him.

The names involved among the opposition seem to be throwbacks to Nigeria's recent history, men who failed as politicians to avert the military takeover of 1966, but who have now returned to the arena to redeem the past and lay claim to a future.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo was leader of the opposition during the first period of civilian rule after independence from Britain, and still, in an autocratic manner, leads the Yorubas of the southwest through his Unity Party, known as the U.P.N. In the east, it is Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria's first President, who leads the Nigerian People's Party, or N.P.P., which is seen as the party of the Ibo people.

Another name from the past has also re-entered the political arena. Emeka Ojukwu returned to the nation in June after 13 years of exile in the Ivory Coast. He is called Mr. Ojukwu now, but he once was General Ojukwu when he led the Ibos in their attempt to secede from federal Nigeria that led to a bloody civil war from 1967 to 1970. He set up a secessionist state called Biafra that was crushed by federal armies. But his failure to carve out a permanent Ibo nation has not diminished his popularity among the eastern tribe. ---- Nigerians Outlaw Islamic Sect

LAGOS, Nigeria, Nov. 20 (Reuters) - The Government has outlawed an extremist Islamic sect blamed for riots three weeks ago in which 206 people died. The Government said in a statement Friday that President Shehu Shagari signed an order banning the group on Thursday night.


http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/21/world/nigerians-prepare-for-1983-election.html

Wow, blast from the past, little much has changed although Nigeria was then a democratic model for the continent...........then the Buhari coup happened and with it a long line of brutal military dictatorships