The process of state-building of the would-be Nigeria started at the beginning of nineteenth century under the vigorous push of Islamic reformism. Uthman dan Fodio’s jihad unified Islamized and pagan lands in a sort of theocracy and proclaimed a Caliphate with its centre in Sokoto. The Sahel had established longstanding relations —trade and migrations— with the Arab states on the Mediterranean shore through the Sahara. The expansion of British colonialism after the legal prohibition of the slave trade —moving from the Atlantic Ocean— interfered with the entire process and diverted it from its original inspiration. Christian missionary activity, the spread of Western values, and the replacement of the slave trade with «legitimate» commerce through Chartered companies such as the Royal Niger Company concentrated on the Atlantic coast represented a challenging alternative. Colonial targets replaced the African design. The unification of the Protectorates was meant to give a final format to the British possession. The indirect rule’s needs brought England to open a special relation with the Hausa-Fulani hierarchies in the North while in the South elites flourished who were prompted to embrace national aims. The main contradiction stemmed from the diverse dislocation of the most promising resources (in the South) and of political maturity and in the future of power (in the North). The history of independent Nigeria started with a crisis of confidence that ignited a military coup d’état, the first one of a long series. The return to a civilian government was definitely carried out only in 1999, thanks to the energetic leadership of Olusegun Obansanjo, a former general. In the last decade, political order and civil coexistence in Nigeria have been shattered by the terrorist campaign of Boko Haram, an extremist movement concentrated mainly in the poor and neglected areas of the North and inspired by an Islamist doctrine which exploits the international imbalance. The terror activities of Boko Haram have been for years the main threat to Nigeria, which however showed a surprising capacity of resilience even in the last crucial elections. The article studies the role of political violence in the history of Nigeria both to create and to destroy. The author points out how three major warlike events —the jihad that brought to the foundation of the Caliphate of Sokoto in 1804, the secession of the South-East region as Republic of Biafra in the immediate post-independence and the current Boko Haram uprising— affected the statehood in the immense region that became a British colonial territory and finally the sovereign state of Nigeria. The politicisation of religion has been in the same time a source of identity and a permanent hindrance to the sustainability of democratic and stable institutions opposing the Islamic heritage, very strong in the North, and the affirmation of a model imbued with Western values imported by colonialism.