Source: MAPS IN MINUTES™ © RH Publications (1997)

A large West African country consisting of a federation of 21 states, with the highest population (95 million) of any African country.

Physical

Nigeria has a southward-facing coast and is bounded by Benin on the west, Niger and Chad on the north, and Cameroon on the east. The sandy coast is bordered by mangrove swamp, inland of which there is a low plain with tropical rainforest spreading up the valleys of the Niger to the north-west and the Benue to the east.

Economy

Oil exports account for some 95% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings; other minerals include abundant supplies of natural gas, iron ore, coal, lead, and zinc. Agriculture employs about two-thirds of the workforce; principal crops include cocoa, groundnuts, cotton, palm oil, maize, and rice, and livestock are reared. Overdependence on oil and significant foreign debt are problems that are being slowly addressed. It is now the largest economy in Africa.

History

The earliest known culture in Nigeria was the Nok culture, which existed from about the 6th century bc to the third century ad. Many different peoples have moved into the region; there are over 250 ethnic groups still living in Nigeria. The kingdom of Kanem-Bornu rose during the 11th century and fell during the 14th century. Islam was introduced to the area during the 13th century. The Portuguese arrived in the 15th century and established a slave trade, supported by the people of the kingdom of Benin. The British were involved in the slave trade by the 17th century. The Hausa people broke away from the Songhay kingdom and began to mingle with the nomadic Fulani, some of whom settled in Hausa towns. In the early 19th century a Fulani empire emerged. The kingdom of Benin and the Yoruba empire of Oyo occupied southern Nigeria.

The island of Lagos was a centre for the slave trade when this was banned by the British in 1807. The British had to use military force to stop the slave ships. In 1851 the British attacked and burnt the city of Lagos and ten years later bought it from King Dosunmu, administering it first from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then from the Gold Coast (Ghana), until in 1886 a separate protectorate (later colony) of Lagos was formed. Explorers worked their way inland, but until the discovery of quinine (1854) to provide protection against malaria, the region remained known as ‘the white man’s grave’. During the second half of the 19th century trading companies were established, forming the Royal Niger Company in 1886, which was then taken over by the British Colonial Office to become the Niger Coast protectorate in 1893. Following the conquest of the kingdom of Benin, this became the protectorate of Southern Nigeria (1900). The protectorate of Northern Nigeria was proclaimed in 1900. In 1906 the colony of Lagos was absorbed into the southern protectorate and in 1914 the two protectorates were merged to form the largest British colony in Africa, which, under its governor Frederick Lugard, was administered indirectly by retaining the powers of the chiefs and emirs of its 150 or more tribes. In Northern Nigeria Muslim chiefs of the Fulani tribes maintained a conservative rule over the majority of the country’s Hausa population. In the West, the Yoruba dominated; the Ibo tribe was centred in the East.

Under the constitution of 1954 a federation of Nigeria was created, consisting of three regions: Northern, Eastern, and Western, together with the trust territory of Cameroons and the federal territory of Lagos. In 1960 the federation became an independent nation within the Commonwealth of Nations, and in 1963 a republic. In 1967 the regions were replaced by twelve states, further divided in 1976 into nineteen states. Oil was discovered off Port Harcourt and a movement for Ibo independence began. In January 1966 a group of Ibo army majors murdered the federal Prime Minister, Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Premiers of the Northern and Western regions, and many leading politicians. In July a group of northern officers retaliated and installed General Gowon as Head of State. A massacre of several thousand Ibo living in the North followed. Attempts to work out constitutional provisions failed, and in May 1967 the military governor of the Eastern region, Colonel Ojukwe, announced his region’s secession and the establishment of the republic of Biafra. Civil war between the Hausa and Ibo peoples erupted, and Biafra collapsed in 1970. General Gowon was deposed in 1975. In 1979 the military government organized multiparty elections. Corruption and unrest precipitated more military takeovers, in 1983 and 1985, when General Ibrahim Babangida became Head of State. Political parties were re-legalized in 1989, but only two parties were allowed to register for elections, both having manifestos devised by the government. Open presidential elections in 1993 were annulled, which prompted serious social unrest. Babangida resigned and handed power over to another military government, promising that an elected civilian government would be installed in 1994. The social and political crisis continued and Sanni Abacha took over as head of state in November 1993. He reinstituted the 1979 military constitution, but continued to insist that a civilian government would eventually be installed. In 1995 the government lifted the ban on political activity. However, in October 1995 nine pro-democracy activists were charged with murder and executed. Following Abacha’s death in 1998, General Abdulsalam Abubakar became President. He released the remaining political prisoners and restored democratic rule. In subsequent elections General Obasanjo was elected President. He was re-elected in 2003. Umaru Yar’Adua succeeded him in 2007, but power was transferred to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 because of Yar’Adua’s ill health. Jonathan served the remainder of the term and was elected President in his own right in 2011. The early 21st century saw a rise in ethnic and religious conflict in Nigeria; in particular, the Islamist Boko Haram movement, (‘western education is forbidden’), intensified attacks against state and Christian targets in the north from 2009, which led to government abuses of human rights in response. In May 2014, Boko Haram abducted nearly 300 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, which created outrage across the world but did not result in effective intervention by Jonathan’s government. By the start of 2015, it had killed thousands of people, forced over a million into internal exile and established control over a significant area in the region. It also launched attacks in neighbouring Cameroon and Chad. Presidential elections due in February 2015 were postponed until the end of March over security concerns. At the same time the Nigerian army, somewhat belatedly, launched a serious campaign against Boko Haram, winning back some territory. In the election Jonathan lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress. Buhari, a Muslim from the north and a retired general, had previously ruled Nigeria in 1983–85 after a military coup. He placed greater emphasis on the military campaign against Boko Haram, claiming to have defeated them by the end of 2016 and to have regained the territory they once controlled. Buhari also launched a major anti-corruption campaign to make his administration more effective and to help in tackling the economic fallout from the collapse in oil prices which severely affected the economy and government revenue.