| Summary/Abstract |
On March 28, 2015, Nigerians returned to the polls to elect a president for the fourth time since the 1999 democratic transition. Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999-present) has lasted far longer than any previous attempt at civilian rule in this country of more than 175 million, encompassing an era of both remarkable growth (following a 2014 recalculation of GDP with more inclusive data, it officially surpassed South Africa as the continent’s largest economy) and worrisome social conflict. Indeed, it is possible to see Nigeria as both a rapidly modernizing success story and a deeply troubled state in which more than 35,000 citizens have died in politically motivated violence over the past four years. While its foreign direct investment inflows ($5.6 billion in 2013) put it in the company of advanced nations like France and Japan, it joins Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in a group of five countries that accounts for 80 percent of the world’s deaths from terrorism.
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