Since the return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria has experienced waves of ethno-religious and communal violence in many parts of the country which have caused the deaths of over 14,000 people and left over three million internally displaced.

After 28 years of military rule, the country remains handicapped by political malpractice, deep economic contradictions and social inequality. Ethnic and religious killings are recurrent; the over-centralisation of control over power and revenue; politicisation of ethnicity; decline of state-administered security and proliferation of non-state armed groups, notably in the oil-rich Niger Delta, all heighten the potential for violence in many of the country's 36 states.

The country's history since independence suggests that the politicisation of ethnicity and religion and factional mobilisation along these lines are a direct by-product of the monopolisation of power and assets by ruling elites that continually frustrate open and fair competition. The civilian experience since 1999 has failed to give most of the country's 140 million people a fair share of the country's wealth, open up new opportunities for economic advancement or fundamentally liberalise the political environment. The widespread and deepening frustration, especially among the youth, has helped fuel militant threats to Nigeria's stability and especially the country's reliability as a major oil producer.

The federal government has characterised many of these developments as no more than a law and order problem and has responded accordingly. But unless it engages with the underlying issues of resource control, citizens' rights, power sharing and accountability, Nigeria will face an internal crisis of increasing proportions.

Concurrently, Nigeria is striving to assert its political weight in West Africa, across the African continent and beyond. However, if the international community, which tends to see Nigeria as a regional police force and major oil producer, fails to better grasp the internal dynamics and intricacies, there is a very real potential for the persistent levels of violence to escalate with major regional security implications.

April elections provide an opportunity for the first transition from one civilian administration to another, but serious flaws could jeopardise this and lead to conflict.