History of Nigeria

Introduction

Nigeria, with an estimated population of 126,635,626 is the largest black nation in the world.  The Federal Republic of Nigeria, as it is officially known, covers an area of 356,669 square miles on the coast of West Africa.  Its borders are contiguous with the Federal Republic of Cameroon to the east, Niger Republic to the north and Benin Republic to the east.  In the northeast, Nigeria has a 54-mile long border with the Republic of Chad, while its Gulf of Guinea coastline stretches for more than 500 miles from Badagry in the west to Calabar in the east, and includes the Bights of Benin and Biafra.  Today, Nigeria is divided administratively into thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja (CIA World Factbook, 2001).

Like Africa as a whole, Nigeria is physically, ethnically, and culturally diverse.  This is partly due to the fact that Nigeria is today inhabited by a large number of tribal groups, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, an estimated 250 of them speaking over four hundred languages, many with dialects.  Muslims and Christians comprise more than 80 percent of the population while the rest are identified with indigenous religions.  However, Nigeria’s greatest diversity is in its people.  These peoples have so much culture and history that it is imperative to chronicle this history as it relates to their current economic and political struggles.  Dating back to the kingdoms and empires of the early seventeenth century, from their involvements in the Atlantic slave trade to its entire merger, this extensive history has blended down to what is currently Nigeria and is thus necessary in order to understand what has become of this once fruitful and promising state.

 History & Evolution

Nigeria only came into being in its present form in the year 1914 when Sir Frederick Lugard, the Royal governor of the protectorates, amalgamated the two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.  Sixteen years earlier, Flora Shaw, who later married Lugard, first suggested in an article for The Times that the several British Protectorates on the Niger be known collectively as Nigeria (Crowder, 21).  Basically, the entire Niger-area under British control became Nigeria.

 It was in 1861 that the British first annexed any part of Nigeria as a colony, and attached it successively to West African Settlements, including Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast colony.  The annexing of Lagos, a coastal town and now the largest city in Africa, led to the establishment of a Southern protectorate in Nigeria, and by 1906 both regions were united and designated a British colony.  However, as Michael Crowder in his Story of Nigeria states, “it would be an error to assume that the people of Nigeria had little history before its final boundaries were negotiated by Britain, France and Germany at the turn of the twentieth century.”

In fact, the story of Nigeria as it is known today goes back more than two thousand years.  Within Nigeria’s frontiers were a number of great kingdoms that had evolved complex systems of government independent of contact with Europe.  These included the kingdoms of Ife and Benin, whose art had become recognized as amongst the most accomplished in the world; the Yoruba Empire of Oyo, which had once been the most powerful of the states of the Guinea coast.  In the north, there were the great kingdoms of Kanem-Borno, with a known history of more than a thousand years; the Fulani empire which for the hundred years before its conquest by Britain had ruled most of the savannah of Northern Nigeria.[2]  And finally, there were the city states of the Niger Delta, which had grown in response to European demands for slaves and later palm-oil; as well as the politically decentralized but culturally homogenous Ibo peoples of the Eastern region and the small tribes of the Plateau.  All these state structures grew tremendously through some form of trade, either internally or externally with foreigners.  One of the most profitable of such trades being the trade with Europeans in humans, popularly known as the Atlantic slave trade.

Post-independence

On 1 October 1960, Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Nigeria's government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Nigerian People's Congress (NPC), a party dominated by Northerners,  and also the Southern dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) led by Nnamdi Azikiwe, who became Nigeria's maiden Governor-General in 1960. Forming the opposition was the comparatively liberal Action Group (AG), which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. The cultural and political differences among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa ('Northerners'), Igbo ('Easterners') and Yoruba ('Westerners'), were sharp.

An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroon opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while northern Cameroon chose to remain in Nigeria. The northern part of the country was now far larger than the southern part. The nation parted with its British legacy in 1963 by declaring itself a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.

For detailed information about the History of Nigeria visit the Press Club blog site on www.pispressclub.blogspot.com

President / Head Of State       Duration Of Term

Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa      1960 - 1966

Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe      October 1, 1963 - January 16, 1966

Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi  January 16, 1966 - July 29, 1966

General Yakubu Gowon          August 1, 1966 - July 29, 1975

General Murtala Ramat Mohammed July 29, 1975 - February 13, 1976

General Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Matthew Obasanjo February 13, 1976 - October 1, 1979

Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari   October 1, 1979 - December 31, 1983

Major-General Muhammadu Buhari December 31, 1983 - August 27, 1985

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida       August 27, 1985 - August 27, 1993

Chief Ernest Adegunle Oladeinde Shonekan        August 26, 1993 - November 17, 1993

General Sani Abacha     November 17, 1993 - June 8, 1998

General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar (rtd.)       June 9, 1998 - May 29, 1999

General (rtd.) Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Matthew Obasanjo  May 29, 1999 - May 29, 2007

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua 29 May 2007 - 5 May 2010

Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan ( Acting President)  9 February 2010 - 6 May 2010

Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan   6 May 2010 - Present