The bombs that exploded in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, as the country was celebrating its golden jubilee earlier this month are a disturbing portent of the unprecedented political territory that the country is entering.

The death last May of Umaru Yar'Adua, Nigeria's president, upended the informal agreement between members of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) to rotate power between northern Muslims and their southern, mainly Christian counterparts. Yar'Adua's deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, from the oil-rich Niger Delta in the south, overcame resistance from members of the late president's Cabinet and was sworn in as Yar'Adua's successor, as stipulated by the constitution. In September, he told Nigerians of his intention to run for another presidential term in 2011.

President Jonathan's announcement triggered furious protests from his northern rivals, including Ebrahim Babangida, a former military dictator who reminded him that Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner, had served as president from 1999, when military rule ended, to 2007, with northern support.

Yar'Adua had completed only three years of his first four-year term when he died, and it was expected that all southerners, including Jonathan, would unite behind another northerner for next year's vote.

But resentment of northerners' perceived dominance of national politics runs deep in the south, particularly in the Niger Delta. The ethnic minority groups that inhabit the area complain that the current revenue-allocation formula, which leaves Nigeria's oil-producing states with only 13 per cent of oil revenue, is grossly unfair and insufficient compensation for the damaged ecology they endure.

In January 2006, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), a violent organisation led by angry Delta youth began to attack oil installations and the soldiers guarding them. Mend and other local groups are demanding that the country return to ‘true federalism' in the spirit of 1960, and 50 per cent of oil revenue be retained by the region's inhabitants.

Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), a grassroots movement in Ogoniland, had called for this as well, before he was hanged by General Sani Abacha's junta in 1995.

Deep pockets

Leading voices in the region have come out strongly in Jonathan's support. Delta leaders point out that 2011 is the ‘minorities' turn to govern the country. Jonathan has the advantage of a massive war chest, given that Nigeria's leaders have always done with the public treasury what they liked. But Babangida also has deep pockets.

The poorly resourced opposition could benefit if the expected northern backlash divides the PDP. Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has announced his intention to contest as the candidate of one of the opposition parties. A Muslim from the north, Ribadu enjoys the support of youth and democrats nationwide. Mohammadu Buhari, whom Babangida replaced as military head of state in 1985, is also expected to run, as the nominee of the Congress of Progressive Change.

Doubts linger about whether longtime northern PDP leaders would break ranks and support Ribadu next year. Conservative northerners also view Buhari, an ascetic politician popular with the region's poor, with unease.

Even if they overcome their reservations and back Ribadu or Buhari, and either candidate goes on to beat Jonathan, angry Delta youths could respond with fresh violence. Other trouble spots — central Nigeria, where ethnic tensions are simmering, and the far north, the stomping ground of Boko Haram, a violent Muslim sect — could get sucked into election-related violence.

With industries collapsing because of constant power outages, unemployment soaring, and cynical politicians forcing their impoverished followers into ethnic and religious laagers, Nigeria's 2011 elections are shaping up to be a perfect storm. In the past, Nigeria has always managed to weather its political tempests. Will it do so again?

Ike Okonta is the author of When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil, and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-Determination.

— Project Syndicate, 2010