In the conclusion I summarize my core findings, elaborate on the book’s contributions, and sketch out the limits of my analysis and identify new research agendas for rising scholars of African politics and comparative democratization. I outline how overlapping elite bargains involving the transitional government, the exiting military and the PDP facilitated the successful transfer to civilians in 1999. By showing how these bargains eventually undermined the PDP’s competitiveness as 2015 approached, I add to our understanding of how elite pacts end. I also reiterate the main findings from my three chapters on the APC’s electoral victory. By articulating promises of economic renewal, anti-corruption, and electoral integrity, the opposition APC capitalized on emerging electoral constituencies and correctly calculated that rational counter-terrorism could not flow from a shallow politics of fear. The PDP played to such prejudice and failed. These findings contribute to comparative research on elections in the context of terrorism by showing how polarization occurred, even without strong ideological differences between the parties. A secessionist revival in the southeast, ongoing violence from Boko Haram in the northeast, and geographically dispersed tensions between farmers and herders highlight the challenges ahead – both for Nigeria and for students of African politics.