A. Precolonial History of the Savanna

The Nok culture, which flourished between 500 BC and AD 200, is the earliest identifiable civilization in Nigeria’s north; the Nok are also the earliest of West Africa’s known ironworkers. (Their real identity unknown, the Nok are named for a village where miners first unearthed their artifacts.) Their famous figurines—finely crafted people and animals in terra-cotta—have influenced centuries of central Nigerian sculpture. Today the art of several central Nigerian peoples continues to reflect Nok style.

A.1. The Kanem-Bornu Empire

The northern region’s first well-documented state was the kingdom of Kanem, which emerged east of Lake Chad in what is now southwestern Chad by the 9th century AD. Kanem profited from trade ties with North Africa and the Nile Valley, from which it also received Islam. The Saifawas, Kanem’s ruling dynasty, periodically enlarged their holdings by conquest and marriage into the ruling families of vassal states. The empire, however, failed to sustain a lasting peace. During one conflict-ridden period sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries, the Saifawas were forced to move across Lake Chad into Bornu, in what is now far northeastern Nigeria. There, the Kanem intermarried with the native peoples, and the new group became known as the Kanuri. The Kanuri state, centered first in Kanem and then in Bornu, is known as the Kanem-Bornu Empire, hereafter referred to as Bornu.

The Kanuri eventually returned to Chad and conquered the empire lost by the Saifawas. Its dominance thus assured, Bornu became a flourishing center of Islamic culture that rivaled Mali to the far west. The kingdom also grew rich in trade, which focused on salt from the Sahara and locally produced textiles. In the late 16th century, the Bornu king Idris Alooma expanded the kingdom again, and although the full extent of the expansion is not clear, Bornu exerted considerable political influence over Hausaland to the west. In the mid- and late 18th century, severe droughts and famines weakened the kingdom, but in the early 19th century Bornu enjoyed a brief revival under al-Kanemi, a shrewd military leader who resisted a Fulani revolution that swept over much of Nigeria. Al-Kanemi’s descendants continue as traditional rulers within Borno State. The Kanem-Bornu Empire ceased to exist in 1846 when it was absorbed into the Wadai sultanate to the east.

A.2. The Hausa-Fulani

The Hausa cultures, which as early as the 7th century AD were smelting iron ore, arose in what is today northwestern and north central Nigeria, to Bornu’s west. The origin of these cultures, however, is a mystery. Legend holds that Bayajidda, a traveler from the Middle East, married the queen of Daura, from whom came seven sons. Each son is reputed to have founded one of the seven Hausa kingdoms: Kano, Rano, Katsina, Zazzau (Zaria), Gobir, Kebbi, and Auyo. Various Nigerian groups explain their origins in similar legends involving migrations southward across the Sahara or from the east or west through the savannas, followed by intermarriage and acculturation. These legends serve to highlight the importance of such interchanges in the cultural, economic, and political development of many Nigerian societies.

However founded, the seven city-states developed as strong trading centers, typically surrounded by a wall and with an economy based on intensive farming, cattle raising, craft making, and later slave trading. In each Hausa state, a monarch, probably elected, ruled over a network of feudal lords, most of whom had embraced Islam by the 14th century. The states maintained persistent rivalries, which at times made them easy prey to the expansion of Bornu and other kingdoms.

A perhaps greater, if more subtle, threat to the Hausa kingdoms was the immigration of Fulani pastoralists, who came from the west to make a home in the Nigerian savanna and who permeated large areas of Hausaland over several centuries. In 1804 a Fulani scholar, Usuman dan Fodio, declared a jihad (holy war) against the Hausa states, whose rulers he condemned for allowing Islamic practices to deteriorate. Local Fulani leaders, motivated by both spiritual and local political concerns, received Usuman’s blessing to overthrow the Hausa rulers. With their superior cavalry and cohesion, the Fulani overthrew the Hausa rulers and also conquered areas beyond Hausaland, including Adamawa to the east and Nupe and Ilorin to the south.

After the war, a loose federation of 30 emirates emerged, each recognizing the supremacy of the sultan of Sokoto, located in what is now far northwestern Nigeria. The first sultan of Sokoto was Usuman. After Usuman died in 1817, he was succeeded by his son, Muhammad Bello. Militarily and commercially powerful, the Sokoto caliphate dominated the region throughout the 19th century.

B. Precolonial History of the Forest and Coast

Nigeria’s oldest archaeological site lies in its forested region, at Iwo Eleru near Akure in southwestern Nigeria. Stone tools and human remains at the site date from 9000 BC.

B.1. The Yoruba

The first well-documented kingdom in what is now southwestern Nigeria was centered at Ife, which was established as the first of the Yoruba kingdoms in the 11th or 12th century. Over the next few centuries, the Ife spread their political and spiritual influence beyond the borders of its small city-state. Ife artisans were highly skilled, producing, among other things, bronze castings of heads in a highly naturalistic style. Terra-cotta, wood, and ivory were also common media.

Shortly after the rise of Ife, the kingdom of Benin emerged to the east. Although it was separate from the Yoruba kingdoms, Benin legends claim that the kingdom’s first rulers were descended from an Ife prince. By the 15th century, Benin was a large, well-designed city sustained by trade (both within the region and, later, with Europe). Its cultural legacy includes a wealth of elaborate bronze plaques and statues recording the nation’s history and glorifying its rulers.

At about the same time as Benin’s ascendance, the major Yoruba city-state of Oyo arose. Situated northwest of Ife, Oyo used its powerful cavalry to replace Ife as Yorubaland’s political center. (Ife, however, continued to serve as the spiritual center of Yorubaland.) When the Portuguese first arrived in the late 15th century, it was the Oyo who controlled trade with them, first in goods such as peppers, which they secured from the northern interior lands and transferred to the southern coast, and later in slaves. In Oyo, as elsewhere throughout coastal West Africa, the traffic in slaves had disastrous results—not just on those traded, who were largely from the interior, but also on the traders. As African nations vied for the lucrative commerce, conflicts increased, and other forms of advancement, both agricultural and economic, fell by the wayside. As a result, when Britain banned the slave trade in the early 19th century, Oyo was hard-pressed to maintain its prosperity. The Oyo state of Ilorin broke away from the empire in 1796, then joined the northern Sokoto caliphate in 1831 after Fulani residing in Ilorin seized power. The Oyo empire collapsed, plunging all of Yorubaland—Oyo, Ife, and other areas—into a bloody civil war that lasted for decades.

B.2. The Igbo

In southeastern Nigeria, archaeological sites confirm sophisticated civilizations dating from at least AD 900, when fine bronze statues were crafted by predecessors of the modern-day Igbo people. These early peoples, who almost certainly had well-developed trade links, were followed by the Nri of northern Igboland. With these exceptions, Igboland did not have the large, centralized kingdoms that characterized other parts of Nigeria. A few clans maintained power, perhaps the strongest of which was the Aro; the Aro lived west of the Cross River, near present-day Nigeria’s southeastern border, and rose to prominence in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Aro were oracular priests for the region and used this role to secure large numbers of slaves. The slaves were sold in coastal ports controlled by other groups such as the Ijo.

C. Colonial Expansion

Compared with other parts of West Africa, Nigeria was slow to feel the penetration of Europe. Unlike in Ghana and Senegal, no European fortifications were built along the coast, and Europeans—mostly British—came ashore only briefly to trade weapons, alcohol, and other goods in return for slaves. It is not clear what portion of the vast number of slaves taken from West Africa (estimates range from about 10 to 30 million) came from Nigeria.

In 1807 Britain abolished the slave trade and enlisted other European nations to enforce the ban. Britain’s motivations were partly humanitarian—there was a reform movement at home—and partly economic: The British Empire no longer had American colonies whose economic growth depended on slaves, and moreover the rise of industrialization meant Britain needed Africa’s raw materials more than its people. Consequently, trade in products such as palm oil, which Europeans valued highly as an industrial lubricant, replaced the trade in humans. Most of Nigeria’s former slave-trading states were weakened by the loss of income. A few managed to continue a much-reduced contraband slave trade until the 1860s. Others used slave labor to farm plantations of oil palm.

British trading companies such as the United Africa Company took advantage of the weakened empires and established depots at Lagos and in the Niger Delta. Meanwhile, explorers such as Mungo Park and Hugh Clapperton of Scotland, John and Richard Lander of England, and Heinrich Barth of Germany charted the Niger River and its surroundings. The explorers, some of them funded by trading companies, laid the groundwork for the eventual expansion inland of the trading companies. Missionaries also facilitated the process of replacing the noxious slave trade with “Christian commerce.” Some inland peoples took advantage of new opportunities to produce goods for the Europeans, but most resisted and were forcibly subjugated.

C.1. The Scramble for Africa

In 1884 and 1885 European powers carved Africa into spheres of influence at the Berlin West Africa Conference. Britain, its claim to Nigeria affirmed, moved quickly to consolidate its territory. The colony of Lagos, first declared in 1861, was expanded, and in 1887 a new protectorate, Oil Rivers (later the Niger Coast Protectorate), was created in the Niger Delta. The British also waged bloody and ruthless war on resisting coastal and forest peoples, particularly in Benin, Nupe, and Ilorin. Its hold in the south was secure by 1897.

While Britain was consolidating these areas, it granted the Royal Niger Company a trading monopoly in the north. In return the company agreed to advance British interests, economic and political. The company set up headquarters at Lokoja, located at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers in central Nigeria, and extended its trade northwest up the Niger and northeast up the Benue. Treaties were signed with several African states, including Nupe, Sokoto, and Gwandu, thus depriving French and German rivals access to the northern region.

In 1900, with the south secure, Britain revoked the Royal Niger Company’s charter and declared that a colonial government would administer Nigeria as two protectorates: one in the south and one in the north. (Lagos was incorporated into the southern protectorate in 1906.) Simultaneously, Britain went to war against the Sokoto caliphate in the northwest, conquering it by 1903. Remaining pockets of resistance within the caliphate and elsewhere in northern Nigeria were quelled over the next few years. In 1914 Britain joined the two protectorates into a single colony, and in 1922 part of the former German colony of Kamerun was attached to Nigeria as a League of Nations-mandated territory.

C.2. Indirect Rule

Britain governed Nigeria via indirect rule, a system in which native leaders continued to rule their traditional lands so long as they collected taxes and performed other duties ensuring British prosperity. Uncooperative or ineffective leaders were easily replaced by others who were more compliant or competent, and usually more than willing to enjoy the perks of government. Britain was thus saved the huge economic and political cost of running and militarily securing a day-to-day government.

Indirect rule operated relatively smoothly in the north, where the British worked with the Fulani aristocracy, who had long governed the Sokoto caliphate and who were able to administer traditional Islamic law alongside British civil law. In the south, however, traditions were less accommodating. In Yorubaland indirect rule disrupted historical checks and balances, increasing the power of some chiefs at the expense of others. Moreover, although the Yoruba kings had long been powerful, few had collected taxes, and citizens resisted their right to do so under British mandate. In the southeast, particularly in Igboland, many of the societies had never had chiefs or for that matter organized states. Consequently, the chiefs appointed by Britain received little or no respect. In Nigeria’s culturally fragmented middle belt, small groups were forcefully incorporated into larger political units and often ruled by “foreign” Fulani, who brought with them alien institutions such as Islamic law.

The British carried out a few reforms, including the gradual elimination of domestic slavery, which had been a central feature of the Sokoto caliphate. They also provided Western education for some of Nigeria’s elite; however, in the main Britain limited schooling as much as feasible.

Britain redirected almost all of Nigeria’s trade away from Africa and toward itself, a move that undermined the northern region’s large, centuries-old trade across the Sahara. Britain further changed the economy by introducing new crops and expanding old ones, such as oil palm, cotton, groundnuts, and cacao, almost all of which were sold for export. Iron and tin were also mined, and railroads were built to transport products. Because Britain required Nigerians to pay taxes in cash rather than goods, most Nigerians had little choice but to grow cash-yielding export crops or to migrate seasonally to areas where paying jobs could be found.

C.3. Opposition to the British

Throughout the early 20th century, Nigerians found many ways to oppose foreign rule. Local armed revolts, concentrated in the middle belt, broke out sporadically and intensified during World War I (1914-1918). Workers in mines, railways, and public service often went on strike over poor wages and working conditions, including a large general action in 1945, when 30,000 workers stopped commerce for 37 days. Ire over taxation prompted other conflicts, including a battle in 1929 fought mainly by Igbo women in the Aba area. More common was passive resistance: avoiding being counted in the census, working at a slow pace, telling stories ridiculing colonists and colonialism. A few political groups also formed to campaign for independence, including the National Congress and the National Democratic Party, but their success was slight. In 1937 the growing movement was given a voice by Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo nationalist, who founded the newspaper West African Pilot.

World War II (1939-1945), in which many Nigerians fought for or otherwise aided Britain, increased the pace of nationalism. The growing anticolonial feeling was most strongly articulated by two groups, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), led by Azikiwe and supported mostly by Igbo and other easterners, and the Action Group, led by activist Obafemi Awolowo and supported mostly by Yoruba and other westerners. By the early 1950s, other parties had emerged, notably the Northern People’s Congress, a conservative northern group led by the Hausa-Fulani elite. The regional power bases of these parties foreshadowed the divisive regional politics that would follow colonialism.

Pressure for independence from within Nigeria was complemented by pressure from other nations, and from reformers in Britain and in other colonies. In 1947 the British responded by introducing a new constitution that divided Nigeria into three regions: the Northern Region, the Eastern Region, and the Western Region. The Northern Region was mainly Hausa-Fulani and Muslim; the Eastern Region, Igbo and Catholic; and the Western Region, Yoruba and mixed Muslim and Anglican. The regions each had their own legislative assemblies, with mainly appointed rather than elected members, and were overseen by a weak federal government. Although short-lived, the constitution had serious long-term impact through its encouragement of regional, ethnic-based politics.

The constitution failed on several counts, was abrogated in 1949, and was followed by other constitutions in 1951 and 1954, each of which had to contend with powerful ethnic forces. The Northern People’s Congress (NPC) argued that northerners, who made up half of Nigeria’s population, should have a large degree of autonomy from other regions and a large representation in any federal legislature. The NPC was especially concerned about respect for Islam and the economic dominance of the south. The western-based Action Group also wanted autonomy; they feared that their profitable western cocoa industries would be tapped to subsidize less wealthy areas. In the poorer east, the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons wanted a powerful central government and a redistribution of wealth—the very things feared by the Action Group.

The eventual compromise was the 1954 constitution, which made Nigeria a federation of three regions corresponding to the major ethnic nations. It differed from the 1947 constitution in that powers were more evenly split between the regional governments and the central government. The constitution also gave the regions the right to seek self-government, which the Western and Eastern regions achieved in 1956. The Northern Region, however, fearing that self-government (and thus British withdrawal) would leave it at the mercy of southerners, delayed the imposition until 1959.

In December 1959, elections were held for a federal parliament. None of the three main parties won a majority, but the NPC, thanks to the size of the Northern Region, won the largest plurality. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, head of the NPC, entered a coalition government with the eastern NCNC as prime minister. The new parliament was seated in January 1960.

D. Independence

Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960. In 1961 the Cameroons trust territories were split in two. The mostly Muslim northern Cameroons voted to become part of the Northern Region of Nigeria, while the southern Cameroons joined the Federal Republic of Cameroon.

Regional and ethnic tensions escalated quickly. The censuses of 1962 and 1963 fueled bitter disputes, as did the trial and imprisonment of leading opposition politicians, whom Prime Minister Balewa accused dubiously of treason. In 1963 an eastern section of the Western Region that was ethnically non-Yoruba was split off into a new region, the Midwestern Region. Matters deteriorated during the violence-marred elections of 1964, from which the NPC emerged victorious. On January 15, 1966, junior army officers revolted and killed Balewa and several other politicians, including the prime ministers of the Northern and Western regions. Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the commander of the army and an Igbo, emerged as the country’s new leader.

Ironsi immediately suspended the constitution, which did little to ease northern fears of southern domination. In late May 1966 Ironsi further angered the north with the announcement that many public services then controlled by the regions would henceforth be controlled by the federal government. On July 29 northern-backed army officers staged a countercoup, assassinating Ironsi and replacing him with Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon. The coup was followed by the massacre of thousands of Igbo in northern cities. Most of the surviving Igbo sought refuge in their crowded eastern homelands.

D.1. Civil War

In May 1967 Gowon announced the creation of a new 12-state structure. The Eastern Region, populated mostly by Igbo, would be divided into three states, two of them dominated by non-Igbo groups. The division would also sever the vast majority of Igbo from profitable coastal ports and rich oil fields that had recently been discovered in the Niger Delta (which until then was a part of the Eastern Region). The leaders of the Eastern Region, pushed to the brink of secession by the recent anti-Igbo attacks and the influx of Igbo refugees, saw this action as an official attempt to push the Igbo to the margins of Nigerian society and politics. On May 27, 1967, the region’s Igbo-dominated assembly authorized Lieutenant Colonel Odemegwu Ojukwu to declare independence as the Republic of Biafra. Ojukwu obliged three days later.

War broke out in July 1967 when Nigerian forces moved south and captured the university town of Nsukka. Biafran troops crossed the Niger River, pushing deep into the west in an attempt to attack Lagos, then the capital. Gowon’s forces repelled the invasion, imposed a naval blockade of the southeastern coast, and mounted a counterattack into northern Biafra. A bitter war of attrition followed, prolonged by France’s military support for the Biafrans. In January 1970 the better-equipped federal forces finally overcame the rebels, whereupon Gowon announced he would remain in power for six more years to ensure a peaceful transition to democracy.

D.2. Oil and Coups

Given the bitterness of the civil war, the restoration of peace and the reintegration of the Igbo into Nigerian life were remarkably rapid. Aiding the resumption of normalcy was a booming oil trade (by the mid-1970s, Nigeria was the fifth largest producer of petroleum in the world). However, along with rapid growth came shortages of key commodities, crippling congestion in the ports, and demands for redistribution of wealth. Although a national development plan resulted in some redistribution, the bulk of Nigeria’s income remained in the hands of an urban few.

In 1974 Gowon announced that the return to civilian rule would be postponed indefinitely. His timing was poor: High prices, chronic shortages, growing corruption, and the failure of the government to address several regional issues had already created a restless mood. On July 29, 1975, Brigadier Murtala Ramat Muhammed overthrew Gowon in a bloodless coup. Muhammed moved quickly to address issues that Gowon had avoided. He replaced corrupt state governors. He purged incompetent and corrupt members of the public services. He instigated a plan to move the national capital from industrial, coastal Lagos to neglected, interior Abuja. Civilian rule, he declared, would be restored by 1979, and he began a five-stage process of transition.

The reforms made Muhammed extremely popular with many Nigerians. On February 13, 1976, he was assassinated in a coup attempt, but his administration remained in power. His successor, Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo, continued Muhammed’s reforms, including the move toward civilian rule. Obasanjo also created seven new states to help redistribute wealth and began a massive reform of local government. In 1977 he convened a constitutional assembly, which recommended replacing the British-style parliamentary system with an American-style presidential system of separate executive and legislative branches. To ensure that candidates would appeal to ethnic groups beyond their own, the president and vice president were required to win at least 25 percent of the vote in at least two-thirds of the 19 states. The new constitution took effect in 1979. The restructured administration was called Nigeria’s Second Republic.

D.3. The Short-Lived Second Republic

Elections for the Second Republic were held in July 1979. Most parties received votes along ethnic lines, the exception being the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which commanded support from several corners of the country and won the most legislative seats. The NPN fell short of a majority, however, and often joined forces with the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), a mainly Igbo group led by Azikiwe. In the presidential elections, NPN candidate Alhaji Shehu Shagari won the largest number of overall votes, plus 25 percent of the votes in 12 of the 19 states and 20 percent of the vote in a 13th state. The results provoked a brief but important constitutional crisis: Did the constitution, with its mandate for the president to win 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of the states, require Shagari to win 25 percent in 13 whole states (which he had not done)? Or did it require him to win 25 percent in 12 and two-thirds states (which he had done)? The federal election commission ruled in favor of the latter, giving the election to Shagari and no doubt undermining the new constitution’s authority.

Once in office, the new federal, state, and local governments embarked on ambitious programs of development to cure the weak economy. Although several of the initiatives were productive, many more were expensive and economically unsound. Others were riddled with corruption. In 1982 the world oil market collapsed, leaving Nigeria unable to pay its short-term debts, much less finance the projects to which it was committed. Eventually, the country was also unable to import essential goods.

In January 1983 the government ordered the expulsion of all unskilled foreigners, claiming that immigrants who had overstayed their visas were heavily involved in crime and were taking jobs from Nigerians. (There was more evidence for the latter than the former.) Between 1.5 and 2 million people, the majority of them Ghanaian, were forced to leave in less than two weeks. The move was widely condemned, especially by West African states, although it proved very popular in Nigeria. In the elections of 1983, the NPN claimed a decisive victory over several opposition parties, while observers cited widespread instances of fraud and intimidation.

D.4. Return of the Military

On New Year’s Eve 1983, army officers led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari overthrew the Shagari government in a bloodless coup. Buhari’s government enjoyed widespread public support for its condemnation of economic mismanagement, of government corruption, and of the rigged 1983 elections. This support waned, however, as the government adopted a rigid program of economic austerity and instituted repressive policies that included a sweeping campaign against “indiscipline,” a prohibition against discussing the country’s political future, and the detention of journalists and others critical of the government.

Buhari’s support withered and in August 1985, Major General Ibrahim Babangida overthrew him to wide acclaim. Babangida rescinded several of Buhari’s most unpopular decrees, initiated a public debate on the state of the economy, and eased controls over business. These actions set the stage for negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for aid, a new round of austerity measures, and better relations with the country’s creditors. For a time, Nigeria achieved a measure of economic recovery.

Babangida maintained a firm grip on power, shuffling key officers from position to position to ensure they would not become too strong and forbidding political parties. Many Nigerians were disturbed by the general’s favoring of northern elite interests. In 1986 and 1990 Babangida faced and suppressed coup attempts. Other tensions escalated, particularly religious strife between Christians and Muslims; several states, including Kaduna, Katsina, and Kano, had severe religious riots in the early 1990s.

In early 1989, in preparation for a transfer to democracy, Babangida approved a new constitution that introduced only minor changes to the 1979 constitution. In May he lifted the ban on political organizations but refused to recognize any of the new parties, instead channeling politics into the government-created Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republic Convention (NRC). Federal legislative elections were finally held in July 1992, with the SDP winning a majority in both houses of the legislature. The presidential elections were delayed, finally held in June 1993, then annulled by the military when initial election results indicated that SDP candidate and wealthy publisher Moshood Abiola had won by a large majority. Babangida, however, claimed he still supported a transition to democracy and in August transferred power to an interim government. The new government lasted all of three months before General Sani Abacha, the powerful secretary of defense, overthrew it and assumed control. Among Abacha’s first acts was the termination of all political activity.

D.5. Nigeria Under Abacha

The Nigerian Labour Congress, which had already held a general strike to protest the annulled election of Abiola, organized another general strike to protest Abacha’s coup. Political pressure groups such as the Campaign for Democracy also stepped up protests against Abacha. In May 1994 the government announced plans for political reform and held elections for local governments and delegates to yet another constitutional conference. In October 1995 Abacha lifted the ban on political activity, promised a transfer to civilian power in 1998, and later allowed five parties to operate. However, he continued his repression of dissidents, the most notorious instance of which was the hanging of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists in November 1995. Saro-Wiwa and his fellow dissidents were critics of the oil industry, which had brought a range of environmental ills to their Ogoni homeland in the Niger Delta. The government dubiously accused the activists of murdering government supporters, gave them a hasty, unfair trial, and executed them. The Abacha government imprisoned many people, among the most prominent being former president Olusegun Obasanjo, former vice president Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (who died in prison in December 1997), and the 1993 president-elect, Moshood Abiola. Other prominent Nigerians, including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, fled into exile. The execution and imprisonment of opponents and other violations of human rights intensified international pressure on Abacha and resulted in Nigeria’s suspension from the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Internally, Abacha managed to maintain support from some segments of the population, especially among his Hausa-Fulani compatriots. In 1995 a constitutional commission presented a draft constitution. Abacha promised to implement the constitution and return the country to civilian rule following presidential elections in October 1998. He was widely expected to be declared the winner of the elections, as all five officially sanctioned political parties had nominated him in April 1998. However, in June 1998 Abacha died suddenly of a heart attack.

D.6. Transition to Democracy

Major General Abdulsalam Abubakar succeeded Abacha as president and pledged to return Nigeria to civilian rule after holding free, democratic elections. Moshood Abiola, imprisoned since apparently winning the 1993 presidential election, was widely believed to be the frontrunner for the presidency. However, just before he was to be released from prison, Abiola also died suddenly. Abubakar promoted the establishment of political parties and freed political prisoners arrested by Abacha, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo. Nigeria held legislative and presidential elections in February and March 1999, and Obasanjo was elected president. The military administration handed over power to Nigeria’s new civilian government in May, and the country adopted a new constitution. The Commonwealth of Nations lifted its suspension of Nigeria’s membership to coincide with the resumption of civilian rule.

Obasanjo’s first years in office were plagued by sporadic outbursts of communal violence across the country. Clashes between religious and ethnic groups, often spawned by local political disputes, have killed thousands of Nigerians since 1999. In April 2003 Obasanjo was reelected to another term, winning the election by a wide margin. International observers criticized the election for widespread incidents of electoral fraud in some states.

In 2006 Obasanjo and his supporters attempted to amend Nigeria’s constitution so that Obasanjo could prolong his term in office. However, the effort failed. In the presidential elections in April 2007 Obasanjo’s hand-picked successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, won in a landslide with about 70 percent of the vote. Opposition parties charged fraud, and international election observers described the vote process as “flawed.” Yar’Adua took office in May. As head of the People’s Democratic Party, Obasanjo’s influence over Nigeria’s government and its policies was expected to continue.

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