Has Nigeria finally woken up from its five year long nightmare? The first round of elections has just been completed and more will take place over the next two months. If the regime keeps to its word, Nigeria will have a civilian government by June this year. But many are still not convinced - pointing to the country's troubled history. Kaye Whiteman analyses the situation on the eve of a new era for Nigeria.

At the closing session of the summit of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) in Abuja at the end of October the Nigerian head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar disarmed his audience by saying "this has been my first and last Ecowas summit" rounding off his speech with a simple "Goodbye". This brought spontaneous and heartfelt applause from across the auditorium, because it summed up the laid-back approach of the man who has become the symbol of a different concept of power - that it is a temporary trust, not, as for many of the Jurassic veterans at the ECOWAS top table - a permanent right.

The secret of Abubakar's remarkable ascendancy over the Nigerian political scene is self-denial based on a programme of self-elimination. He has made his commitment to the 29 May 1999 deadline for the transition to a civilian government the talisman of his rule. It is a date he has described as "sacrosanct", and he has made a number of visits to units of the security forces (including the police) to impress on them that this time the return to the barracks is definite and permanent. As he said to a meeting of troops at the beginning of December, coup-making has, long since gone out of fashion, and "any one of you who has not come to terms with this reality is only engaging in self-delusion".

It is this insistence on the imminent departure of the military from politics which has overcome the initial deep-rooted doubt as to the sincerity of the Nigerian armed forces when it came to giving up power. Both domestic and international circles had seen years of promises of returning power to civilians, from the regimes of both Ibrahim Babangida (1985-93) and Sani Abacha (1993-97), betrayed by prevarication, delay, bogus political engineering, changes of course, and the growing belief (which in Abacha's case proved to be certainty) that what was being cooked was self-succession.

Babangida had been able, for a time, to trade on the profound disillusionment experienced by Nigerians with the civilian politicians of the Second Republic (1979-83) but with the long years of military rule that memory receded, and the shortcomings of the military were starkly highlighted. By the time Babangida got into the clinches of the 1993 pull-out, the army were already deeply unpopular.

The 80-day interregnum of the un-elected Ernest Shonokan in the same year may have done nothing for the reputation of civilians, but it also did nothing to prepare for the shock of Abacha, who after a couple of years of apparent sincerity, if no evident urgency, in preparing a democratic transition, tightened his dictator's grip, in the belief that he could promote himself as the next elected leader (even if he had some difficulty with the idea that he would have to retire from the army in order to do so). This was a path which had been followed by military leaders in neighbouring countries - Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and Benin, all of which are ruled by ex-military men. Abacha reasoned that if they had got away with it, he could. The awful thought that still haunts Nigerians is that, had providence not intervened on the night of 7-8 June, he might have done.

In the fateful year of 1995, the execution of Saro-Wiwa, and the jailing for alleged treason of retired General Obasanjo and Musa Yar'Adua (ironically both leaders of the military regime which had been genuine about handing over to civilians in 1979), generated an increased atmosphere of terror and paranoia. The international isolation which followed compounded the bunker mentality, but a climate was created which progressively united the country against Abacha. This increased after what now seems certain to have been the murder of Yar'Adua in prison, which created deep shock, especially in the north.

Thus were patched over the north-south antipathies which had emerged in the wake of the 1993 crisis over the annulment of the June Presidential elections, reawakening what Nigerians are wont to call the "national question".

Paradoxically the July 1998 death (also from cardiac attack) of Chief Moshood Abiola, the putative victor of that election, made the promotion of a new unity and national reconciliation easier by removing a potentially serious bone of contention. At the same time, the release of political detainees, and most military ones, the freeing up of a harassed media and the general atmosphere of relaxed openness emanating from Abubakar's style spread like a balm through the land. Discreet non-judicial revelations of the abuses of Abacha, both in the areas of human rights and of financial probity have helped create an atmosphere of better, more moral governance. And the post-nightmare detente still prevails six months after Abacha's death.

Although there has been much talk of ethnic resurgence, especially among the two major southern peoples, the Yoruba and the Igbo, and a rash of community conflicts, especially in the disturbed Niger delta, the return to a genuinely open political system which has been one of the major planks of the Abubakar programme, has brought back to public view some of the true complexities of Nigerian politics.

Students of electoral patterns from the still relatively reliable elections of 1959 and 1979 (and to some extent 1993) have seen progressive signs of the breaking of the traditional "three-cornered stool" mould of Nigerian politics which posited three parties based on the three major peoples - Hausa-Fulani (north), Yoruba (west) and Igbo (east).

In fact, well over one third belong to minority groups. The minorities had asserted their claim to a place in the system at British-organised constitutional conferences in the 1950s, but the colonial power resisted the pressure, and delivered Nigeria over to the majorities strait-jacket, in fact favouring the old north. It was only the failure of the British solution in the January 1966 crack-up, and the subsequent arrival of the Gen Ironsi Gowon regime (backed by the minorities who were strong in the armed forces) that the shape of a new order began to emerge.

It was the creation of 12 states in 1967 on the eve of the civil war that began the breaking of the mould, a phenomenon which has recurred at electoral intervals, from 1979 to 1993, as the number of states has increased to its current 36.

Nigerian election watchers are girding themselves for another chance to study the country's electoral performance in particularly open conditions. One of the more interesting features of the past six months of "organic" politics has been the willingness of leading northern politicians to endorse the idea of a southern president, as if to recognise indirectly that the annulment of June 1995 had done serious damage to the fabric of national unity.

Even this is seen by some as a subtle ploy to circumscribe whoever is elected as being from one part of the country, and some hanker for that elusive ideal, a genuinely national leader - but the development is on the whole a welcome sign. The high vote in the local government elections of 5 December was evidence of the continued enthusiasm of Nigerians for genuine elections (just as the very low vote in the parliamentary elections exposed the lack of belief in the system which Abacha was trying to impose). The blessing of the international observers was also an encouraging portent.

The national spread of the two main parties, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), an alliance of politicians who had come out against Abacha in his last few weeks, which proved the most successful, and the All Peoples Party (APP), was also encouraging, even if the continued concentration of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the south west, said by its defenders to be a show of strength prior to horse-trading, showed that ethnic power bases still died hard. These are the only three of the nine provisionally registered parties who are to move through to the next stage of polling, but there is still much potential for realignment.

In the feverish atmosphere that will surround the forthcoming elections of January (State assemblies and Governors) and February (Federal assembly and Presidential) there will inevitably be periods when the going will look very bumpy. However, the rules established under the Independent National Electoral Commission - headed by a respected judge Ephraim Akpata should keep the process going, and produce a civilian government by the end of February. Declarations by the military that they have no interest in a particular party will also help, and it is clearly important that this impartiality be sustained.

The well funded emergence of General Obasanjo as a front runner may even so have encouraged fears that he may be a "military candidate". But this has been strenuously denied. He is, however, a "national candidate, having reportedly little support among his own Yoruba people, but substantial backing elsewhere. He still has to secure the nomination of his chosen party, the PDP, and at the time of writing it was still too early to say who will be the candidates, although Obasanjo's main rival in the PDP is certain to be Alex Ekwuema, a former Vice-President, and the APP nomination may go to Emmanuel Iwuayanwu (both of the latter being Igbo).

The contest in the AD seems likely to be between former Finance Minister Olu Falae and former Oyo State Governor Bola Ige, both from the south-west. There are many other names, however, that have been floated such as G.O. Onosode and Philip Asiodu, both from the business community, and northern runners may yet come forward, although at the moment they are more likely to be for Vice-Presidential slots. The parties' nominating conventions, the next stage in the process, may yet produce surprises and sudden regroupings, and will certainly see considerable spending of money.

It is not unnoticed that all the candidates are from the older generation of the political class, and the problem of political renewal is going to be one which the next regime will have to face. The "new breeds" which Babangida had tried to put forward in the 1980s now appear to have been assimilated to the old-breeds, but there is a whole range of talented people in the 30 and 40-something age group, with vastly different experiences and ideas of modern governance, who are waiting in the wings.

Likewise, the Abubakar regime, by its popularity (and the short-term nature of that popularity) has masked the mountain of problems facing Nigeria. The infrastructure neglect of the last few years has left the health and education services in serious need of rehabilitation, compounded by the institutional atrophy that has affected especially the civil service and parastatals. Rapid privatisation of telecommunications and energy are to be rushed through despite difficulties, but the real problems are in the oil sector, where a potent mix of decrepit refineries and political agitation in the Delta have lead to acute and apparently insoluble fuel shortages.

This has had a knock-on effect on the economy as oil output has declined at the same time as the lowest oil price (around $10/barrel) for years, presaging huge deficit at the end of the year, thereby whittling away the reserves built up in the Abacha years, in spite of the serious diversions of funds that has now been disclosed. The much awaited move of uniting the official and unofficial exchange rates will be the only way the international underwriting of the economy can really begin, in spite of all expressions of goodwill the Abubakar regime has received.

The Head of State's own situation, despite his prestige, also remains fragile. While determinedly presented as a "new beginning", which in many ways it has been, the provisional Ruling Council contains many who had been there under Abacha, not all of whom are happy at the rapid push to civilian rule. Abubakar's own status, however, may be his best insurance policy against any move to derail him and the process he has begun.

Indeed the very brevity of the transition may be an advantage, as it can be used as an alibi for not prosecuting far-reaching reforms (that is to the Constitution, even if some changes may yet to be made to the 1995 model which is being used). But it cannot be repeated enough that any hint that 29 May not be fulfilled would contain seeds of real and appalling danger.