Published December 10, 2012 | By Nate Haken, Filipa Carreira, Elizaveta Egorova, Rachel Hersh

Not every explosion in northern Nigeria stems from the radicalism of Boko Haram. Nor is every outbreak of violence in the Niger Delta the result of militants fighting over oil revenues. Rather, violence in its different forms is an expression of a broader and deeper fabric of social, economic, political, and security challenges. Given the wrong set of underlying conditions, collective violence can spark seemingly out of nowhere, whether or not there is a formal paramilitary group active in the region. Even when such organizations do not exist, in an area with past and current episodes of insecurity, latent structures may still be there, to be crystallized at a moments notice--in the event of a political contest, land dispute, turf warfare, or chieftaincy tussle.  Violence can sometimes be self-organizing.  Just add water.

The government’s amnesty program in the Niger Delta has been partially successful. Attacks by militants on oil facilities and state assets have been much reduced. However, since 2009, organized insurgency in the Niger Delta has morphed into a situation of general lawlessness — abductions, murders, gang violence, intra-communal violence, land disputes, mob justice, and political thuggery. Meanwhile, in the North, ethnic and sectarian violence has polarized communities causing some to migrate into religious enclaves out of fear. During the period of May-October 2012, there were bombings in Kaduna and large scale communal violence in Plateau. In addition to the shifting patterns of violence in the North and the South, there were also devastating floods — Nigeria’s worst in 40 years — which further exacerbated pressure on the state’s ability to manage conflict risk.