This book focuses on Nigerian politics from 1998 to the present, and this chapter introduce readers to Nigeria and situates the study within research on terrorism, comparative democratization and electoral politics in Africa. I summarize some of the violence and unfolding tensions related to the three stress points that I analyze in the book’s concluding chapter. In particular, I note how billions of dollars spent on “countering violent extremism” has primarily focused on the causes of violent insurgency and how to defeat it – but not necessarily on its general political effects. This is surprising since electoral democracies are more likely to experience terrorism. The book thus seeks to explain how the presence of Boko Haram, one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations, impacts campaign strategies, the party system, and voting behavior in Nigeria. I find that the erosion of an elite bargain that facilitated Nigeria’s transition to civilian rule in 1999 made the ruling party vulnerable. But it was economic voting and new issues such as “electoral integrity” that made the opposition politically competitive.