Nigerian elections are hotly contested because the stakes are high for officeholders and their supporters. Nigeria is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in Africa as well as the continent's most populous country, with about 150 million people. Nigeria can use its production capacity of 2.4 million barrels of oil per day to generate government revenues approaching $60 billion. Accordingly, Nigeria's state, local and national governments are richer than many of their African counterparts. Patronage and government revenues define the success of Nigerian political careers, and the only way to advance a career is to win an election.

Underlying every national election is an informal power-sharing agreement, known as zoning, created in 1999 by the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which dominated and continues to dominate the transition from military to civilian rule. The agreement divides the country into six regions — three in the north and three in the south — and stipulates that executive power alternate between the north and the south and among their respective regions after two terms of four years each. In theory, the agreement would apportion power equally among Nigeria's various interest groups and discourage reactionary violence from disenfranchised regions. 

So far, Jonathan has not commented on his candidacy. However, he has asked Nigeria's citizens to evaluate his performance, and he has permitted the ruling PDP to discuss his candidacy and criticize anyone who opposes it.

The problem with Jonathan's re-election is that it would run counter to the zoning agreement's specifications. In 2007, Jonathan was elected vice president, a position he held until then-President Umaru Yaradua, an ethnic Hausa-Fulani from the north, died in office in 2010. Jonathan then served as acting president for a year that had been designated to a Hausa-Fulani, not an Ijaw. Moreover, legal maneuverings allowed Jonathan to be elected to a four-year term in 2011. In so doing, Jonathan disrupted the executive rotation set forth by the zoning agreement. Were he to win re-election in 2015, Jonathan will have been president — out of turn — for nine years.

That northern Nigerians believe Jonathan should not be president comes at bad time for the current administration. Though militant Islamist group Boko Haram conducted a previous campaign loosely from 2002 to 2009, its current campaign picked up intent and capability during the same time frame that Jonathan took power. Anti-Jonathan sentiment will help sustain Boko Haram's campaign of violence. Aggrieved northern officials may even support or condone the violence while other officials, turning against the group under pressure from the Nigerian government, will be targeted for reprisals.

Jonathan's candidacy could inspire violence not only from his opponents but also from his supporters in the Niger Delta (Nigerians refer to this region also as the South-South geopolitical zone). To help achieve their rise to power, Jonathan and his supporters forged a codependent relationship with the Niger Delta's ethnic Ijaw militants. These gangs were empowered by political patrons and were organized into militant movements, including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force. Starting in 2005, MEND carried out a series of attacks against the region's oil infrastructure to intimidate the country into electing Jonathan as vice president. The impact of the MEND campaign was to destroy oil pipelines and kidnap oil workers and take hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil production offline per day. The MEND campaign was reined in by 2010, as a result of Jonathan's successfully returning patronage payments and appointments to his supporters via the Nigerian government's amnesty program. MEND helped Jonathan win the office by effectively holding the oil-producing region ransom.

Militancy will define Nigeria in the lead-up to the presidential election in 2015. Boko Haram will attack government or civil society targets in northern Nigeria, and MEND or similar gangs will attack energy sites in the Niger Delta. The two regions and their respective militant groups will not battle each other directly. Rather, they will attack targets in their respective regions to pressure or protect the Jonathan government. Kidnappings and pipeline attacks can be expected in the Niger Delta, where the message is clear: Nigeria's economy is vulnerable to the interests of the Ijaw.