LAGOS, Nigeria —The death of long-ailing Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua appears to end a prolonged period of political uncertainty that threatened to destabilize Africa’s most populous nation, as a successor was sworn in peacefully on Thursday — months after assuming the president’s duties and sidelining his loyalists.

Yet Mr. Yar’Adua’s death late Wednesday will sharpen focus on what analysts say is sure to be an intense period of political jockeying. Nigeria is set to hold presidential elections next year and it remains unclear who the top candidates will be.

The president’s death has further complicated things by upsetting an informal agreement in the ruling political party that the presidency should shift between the north and south of the country every eight years. Mr. Yar’Adua, a northerner, was serving his first four-year term. Goodluck Jonathan, who was sworn in as president Thursday 12 hours after his predecessor’s death, is a southerner and so wasn’t supposed to hold that highest office at this time.

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ABUJA, Nigeria—Hundreds of protesters rallied Wednesday in this country’s capital, piling political pressure on a government that is already reeling from a leadership shakeup and deadly violence in a nearby city.

The demonstrations in the Nigerian capital of Abuja took aim at the country’s absentee president, Umaru Yar’Adua, and voiced frustration at what is seen as a leadership vacuum in Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria, also a major oil exporter, has been engulfed in a series of crises, from militant attacks on pipelines to Sunday’s slaughter, in which Muslims allegedly killed hundreds of Christian, in villages outside the city of Jos.

After the violence, Nigeria’s vice president, Mr. Jonathan, sacked the country’s national security adviser. The new security adviser, retired Gen. Aliyu Gusau, is a prominent figure in Nigeria who has served as National Security Adviser to two former heads of state.

The security official’s dismissal fueled speculation that the government may have known about imminent attacks. Jonah Jang, the governor of Plateau State, told reporters that shortly before Sunday’s violence he had warned the country’s military that an attack was imminent, but that they didn’t respond.

On a separate front, Mr. Jang sent a letter to the Senate president, a fellow member of the ruling political party in Nigeria, asking for help to resolve political infighting in the state. The letter, which was viewed by the Wall Street Journal, was dated March 2, five days before the massacres outside Jos.

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Camp of Ailing President Says Vice President Will Rule for Now

By WILL CONNORS

ABUJA, Nigeria—The return of Nigeria’s ailing president after a three-month medical absence sets the stage for a showdown over who will ultimately call the shots in Africa’s most-populous nation.

President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had been receiving treatment in Saudi Arabia, returned home early Wednesday but remains too ill to govern, according to a presidential spokesman.

Mr. Yar’Adua, who didn’t make a public appearance, offered a message of support for his vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, who was appointed acting president earlier this month by the Nigerian National Assembly, to serve until the return of the president.

“President Yar’Adua wishes to reassure all Nigerians that on account of their unceasing prayers and by the special grace of God, his health has greatly improved,” presidential spokesman Segun Adeniyi said. “However, while the president completes his recuperation, Vice President Jonathan will continue to oversee the affairs of state.”

That statement appears to start a clock toward the return of Mr. Yar’Adua, 58, whose absence with kidney and heart problems left the country in political limbo. Stepping into the president’s role earlier this month, Mr. Jonathan has reshuffled the cabinet, made long-delayed government appointments and has held meetings with foreign oil companies to calm international investors and the public.

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Squabbling Rebels, Corruption Cast Doubt on Peace Plan

By WILL CONNORS

THE NIGER DELTA, Nigeria — Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua unveiled an offer in June for rebels to turn in their weapons in exchange for amnesty. Militant leader Ateke Tom watched the news conference on a flat-panel TV at his remote camp deep in this oil-rich expanse of wetlands.

“We want to observe the government’s moves before coming out,” Mr. Tom said a few days later in an interview at his outpost. Outside his concrete residence, young men in camouflage tank tops watched American movies and smoked marijuana in cigar-size joints, their AK-47s lying in the mud beside them.

Mr. Tom, a squat man sporting a G-Unit T-shirt and a gaudy medallion around his neck, said he was negotiating with federal officials, not the state government, which he doesn’t trust. “The governor wants me dead,” he said.

Mr. Tom and other militant leaders have wreaked havoc in recent years on Nigeria’s oil industry — and consequently its economy — from this vast network of densely forested creeks that fan out to the Gulf of Guinea. Now they must decide whether to stop their costly attacks on oil facilities and come out of the creeks once and for all.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

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By Will Connors and Spencer Swartz

LAGOS, Nigeria — A high-profile government amnesty program aimed at stopping militants in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region from bombing pipelines is coming under fire for not seeking permanent solutions to the area’s underlying problems.

The amnesty program, scheduled to begin Thursday and run two months, is the biggest public effort yet by President Umaru Yar’Adua to ease the unrest in the Niger Delta that has cost the country billions of dollars in lost oil revenue.

But Nigerian state governors, analysts, and the militants themselves have criticized the plan because it does little to address the core causes of the militancy and criminality that have plagued the Niger Delta for decades, such as the lack of education, jobs and basic services.

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Here’s my re-cap of last week’s Supreme Court ruling, for the New York Times.

LAGOS, Nigeria — The last legal challenge to the legitimacy of President Umaru Yar’Adua was quashed by the Supreme Court last week, but he and Nigeria are far from out of the woods.

Although Mr. Yar’Adua, a former governor from a remote northern state, finally has a firm mandate to take charge of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and oil-rich country, he has accomplished so little in the 19 months since his flawed election that few believe that he can.