In this article we obtain asymptotic formulas for eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the nonself-adjoint ordinary differential operator with periodic and antiperiodic boundary conditions, when coefficients are arbitrary summable complex-valued functions. Then using these asymptotic formulas, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions on the coefficient for which the root functions of these operators form a Riesz basis.Let P and A be the operators generated in L 2 [0, 1] by the periodic (1) y (k) (1) = y (k) (0), k = 0, 1, 2, . . . , (m − 1) and the antiperiodic(2) y (k) (1) = −y (k) (0), k = 0, 1, 2, . . . , (m − 1) boundary conditions respectively and by the differential expressionwhere m is an even integer and p 2 , p 3 , . . . , p m are complex-valued summable functions. In this article we derive asymptotic formulas for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the operators P and A. Using these asymptotic formulas, we obtain conditions on the coefficient p 2 for which the root functions of these operators form a Riesz basis in L 2 [0, 1]. Note that if m is an odd number, then the boundary conditions (1) and (2) are strongly regular and the root functions of P and A form a Riesz basis (see [4,