Nigeria: the story on HearLore

Nigeria

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, home to more than 236 million people, making it the sixth most populous nation on Earth. This vast population is spread across a territory that covers an area of 923,768 square kilometers, situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The country shares borders with Niger to the north, Chad to the northeast, Cameroon to the east, and Benin to the west. Within this expansive land lie 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital city of Abuja is located. Lagos, the largest city by population, stands as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the largest in Africa, serving as the financial epicenter of the nation. Despite its size and population, Nigeria has been home to several indigenous material cultures and pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC. The Nok culture, which thrived between 1500 BC and 200 AD, marks one of the earliest known civilizations in the region, producing life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Africa. The Hausa Kingdoms inhabited the north, with the Edo Kingdom of Benin in the south, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri in the southeast, and the Oyo Empire in the southwest. The present-day territory of Nigeria was home to a vast array of city-states, each with its own unique history and culture. The modern state originated with British colonization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate on the 1st of January 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures and incorporated traditional monarchs as a form of indirect rule. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on the 1st of October 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of military dictatorships and democratically elected civilian governments until achieving a stable government in the 1999 Nigerian presidential election. Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together constituting over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures de jure freedom of religion, and it is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north part of the country, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority. Nigeria is a regional power in Africa and a middle power in international affairs. Nigeria's economy is the fourth-largest in Africa, the 52nd-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 19th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa by its citizens due to its large population and economy, and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, NAM, the Economic Community of West African States, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. It is one of the Next Eleven economies, and also a member, along with Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey, of the MINT group.

What is the population of Nigeria and how does it rank globally?

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with more than 236 million people, making it the sixth most populous nation on Earth. This vast population is spread across a territory that covers an area of 923,768 square kilometers.

When did Nigeria gain independence from the United Kingdom?

Nigeria gained full independence from the United Kingdom on the 1st of October 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its Prime Minister. The country retained the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria at that time.

What were the dates of the Nigerian Civil War and how many people died?

The Nigerian Civil War began on the 6th of July 1967 and ended in January 1970 after a 30-month conflict. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million.

Which ethnic groups are the largest in Nigeria and what percentage of the population do they constitute?

The three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east. Together these groups constitute over 60% of the total population of more than 250 ethnic groups.

When was the modern state of Nigeria officially formed and how was it created?

The modern state of Nigeria took its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate on the 1st of January 1914. This union created the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria under British rule.

Who is the current president of Nigeria and when was he inaugurated?

Bola Tinubu is the current president of Nigeria and he was inaugurated on the 29th of May 2023. He won the disputed 2023 presidential election with 36.61% of the vote.

Ancient Civilizations and Iron

The Nok civilization, which thrived between 1500 BC and 200 AD, produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Africa. Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria, dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja and to 750 BC at the site of Opi. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age was accomplished without intermediate bronze production. Some have suggested the technology moved west from the Nile Valley, but the Iron Age in the Niger River valley and the forest region appears to predate the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years, as well as predating it in the Nile Valley. More recent research suggests that iron metallurgy was developed independently in Africa. The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities of Daura, Biram, Katsina, Kingdom of Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as Sudan or as Bilad Al Sudan, meaning Land of the Blacks. Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they began trans-Saharan trade and were referred to by the Arabic speakers as Al-Sudan, meaning The Blacks, as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the region's major center for Islamic civilization. The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures. The Royal Benin ivory mask, one of Nigeria's most recognized artifacts, dates back to the 16th century. The wall-like structure in the center of Benin City probably represents the walls of Benin, housing the Benin bronze decorated historic Benin City Palace. The Benin Empire's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo. In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire allowed the Fulani people to gain headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani, a nomadic ethnic group, primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region north of Sudan with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms, founding the centralized Sokoto Caliphate. This empire, with Arabic as its official language, grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the east with the western Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire, modern-day Kwara, and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, to reach the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The sultan sent out emirs to establish suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization; the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.

Colonial Conquest and Division

In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin important, direct trade with the peoples of southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos, formerly Eko, and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade. The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra, now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny, became one of the largest slave-trading posts in West Africa in this era. Other major slaving ports were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin, and Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra. The majority of those taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars. Usually, the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labor; they were sometimes gradually acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. Slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave-trading kingdoms who participated in the Atlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. Britain intervened in the Lagos kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave-trade-friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on the 1st of January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church. In 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River. The British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War from 1901 to 1902, defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire. By 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. British General Lord Frederick Lugard was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist hijra. In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as ruler. In 1903, the British victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On the 13th of March 1903, at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last vizier of the caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new caliph. Lugard abolished the caliphate but retained the title sultan as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as the Sokoto Sultanate Council. In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining northern forces of Attahiru. The caliphate forces in the south continued to resist the British and Germans in the Adamawa Wars. By 1906, resistance to British rule in the area had been quelled. On the 1st of January 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy. Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic legitimist tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. By the mid-20th century following World War II, a wave for independence was sweeping across Africa, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the eve of independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. The balance between north and south was also expressed in Nigeria's political life. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria, slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.

Independence and Civil War

Nigeria gained a degree of self-rule in 1954, and full independence from the United Kingdom on the 1st of October 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as its Prime Minister, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa in the north, Igbo in the east, and Yoruba in the west. The Westminster system of government was retained, and thus the President's powers were generally ceremonial. The parliamentary system of government had Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister and Nnamdi Azikiwe as the ceremonial president. The founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. The opposition consisted of the comparatively liberal Action Group, which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. An imbalance was created in the polity as a result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to join Nigeria. The northern part of the country became larger than the southern part. At Nigeria's independence, the Northern Region gained more seats in parliament than the southerner Eastern and Western regions combined, this would cement Northern dominance in Nigerian politics for years to come. Resentment among southern politicians precipitated into political chaos in the country. Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of Western Region, was accused of attempting to overthrow the government. This followed a period of conflict between the AG regional government and the central government. In spite of the flimsiness of the evidence presented by the government's prosecutors, he was convicted. With incarceration of Awolowo, Samuel Akintola took over as the premier of Western Region. Because Akintola was an ally of Ahmadu Bello, the undisputed strong man of Nigeria, Akintola was criticized as being a tool of the North. As premier of the West, Akintola presided over the most chaotic era in Western Region, one which earned it the nickname the Wild-Wild West. However, as late as Thursday, the 13th of January 1966, Balewa had announced that the federal government was not going to intervene in the West. However, the very next day, Akintola, premier of the West met with his ally Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, premier of the North and party boss of NPC party to which Balewa belonged. At the same time a top-level security conference in Lagos was taking place which was attended by most of the country's senior army officers. All of this activity created rumors that the Balewa government would be forced to crack down on lawlessness in the West using military might. The disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led to two military coups in 1966. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna, of the Igbo tribe, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Northerner of Eastern extraction, and Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba from the West. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the plotters struggled to form a central government. Senate President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, under the command of another Igbo officer, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by Northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Yakubu Gowon as military head of state. Tension rose between north and south; Igbos in northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region. In May 1967, Governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independent from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, as a result of the continuous and systematically planned attacks against Igbos and those of Eastern extraction popularly known as 1966 pogroms. This declaration precipitated the Nigerian Civil War, which began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on the 6th of July 1967, at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long blockade of Biafra and its isolation from trade and international relief, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government, with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while France and Israel aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists. The blockade of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War resulted in a famine that ultimately cost at least a million lives.

Oil and Military Rule

Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed an oil boom in the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the center of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns. The coup in July 1975, led by Generals Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Joseph Garba, ousted Gowon, who fled to Britain. The coup plotters wanted to replace Gowon's autocratic rule with a triumvirate of three brigadier generals whose decisions could be vetoed by a Supreme Military Council. For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Muhammed to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Together, the triumvirate introduced austerity measures to stem inflation, established a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, replaced all military governors with new officers, and launched Operation Deadwood through which they fired 11,000 officials from the civil service. Colonel Buka Suka Dimka launched a February 1976 coup attempt, during which General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military, and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. After the coup attempt, General Olusegun Obasanjo was appointed military head of state. Obasanjo vowed to continue Murtala's policies. Aware of the danger of alienating northern Nigerians, Obasanjo brought General Shehu Yar'Adua as his replacement and second-in-command as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters completing the military triumvirate, with Obasanjo as head of state and General Theophilus Danjuma as Chief of Army Staff, the three went on to re-establish control over the military regime and organized the military's transfer of power program: states creation and national delimitation, local government reforms and the constitutional drafting committee for a new republic. The military carefully planned the return to civilian rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties had broader support than witnessed during the first republic. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria was elected president. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. On the 1st of October 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down. In August 1983, Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence, and allegations of widespread vote-rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. There were also uncertainties, such as in the first republic, that political leaders may be unable to govern properly. The 1983 military coup d'état was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the government and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development. Ibrahim Babangida overthrew Buhari in the coup d'état of 1985. Babangida established the Nigerian Political Bureau in 1986 which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992. Babangida legalized the formation of political parties and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party and National Republican Convention ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which Chief Bola Ige referred to as two leper hands. The 1993 presidential election held on the 12th of June was the first since the military coup of 1983. The results, though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission, showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party defeated Bashir Tofa and Sylvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of an interim national government. Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria. Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country, was overthrown in a coup d'état of 1993 led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to end the crisis of the Third Republic. In 1995, Abacha's regime hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders, which caused Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court. Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999. The regime came to an end in 1998 when the dictator died in the villa. Abacha looted money to offshore accounts in Western European banks and maintained his grip on power through arrests and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on the 5th of May 1999, which provided for multiparty elections. On the 29th of May 1999, Abubakar handed over power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo, as President of Nigeria. Obasanjo had been in prison under the dictatorship of Abacha. Obasanjo's inauguration heralded the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic, ending a 39-year period of short-lived democracies, civil war and military dictatorship. Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power and allowed him to run for a second term in the 2003 presidential elections were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria made significant progress in democratization under Obasanjo. In the 2007 general elections, Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came to power. The international community, which had observed the Nigerian elections to promote a free and fair process, condemned these elections as seriously flawed. Yar'Adua died on the 5th of May 2010, and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan had been sworn in by the Senate three months earlier as acting president to succeed Yar'Adua. Jonathan won the 2011 presidential election; the polls went smoothly and with relatively little violence or electoral fraud. Jonathan's tenure saw an economic recovery that made Nigeria the leading economic power in Africa. The Jonathan administration also saw an increase in unparalleled corruption, with as many as 20 billion US dollars said to have been lost to the Nigerian state through the national oil company. Above all, however, Jonathan's tenure saw the emergence of a wave of terror by the Boko Haram insurgency, including the Gwoza massacre and Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in 2014.

Democracy and Modern Challenges

Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the biggest opposition parties in Nigeria , the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and the new PDP, a faction of serving governors of the ruling People's Democratic Party , formed the All Progressives Congress led by current president Bola Ahmed Tinubu. At the time, it was the most expensive election ever to be held on the African continent, being surpassed only by the elections of 2019 and 2023. The new mega-opposition party chose as their candidate for the election former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari's campaign in 2015 was popular and built around his image as a staunch anti-corruption fighter, he won the election by over two million votes. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. The election marked the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election in Nigeria. Insecurity heightened drastically under Buhari with banditry, insurgency and separatist agitations increasingly widespread. The economy also experienced two recessions and global oil shocks as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Buhari was elected in the 2019 presidential election, he died two years after leaving office. Four major candidates, amongst other less popular candidates, vied for the presidency in the 2023 presidential election. For the first time since the return of democracy, no former military ruler ran for president, marking a strengthening of democracy and faith in the multiparty constitution. The election also saw the rise of metonymic supporters of the new candidates, the Obidient movement of Peter Obi, previously governor of Anambra State, widely appealed to young, urban voters and has his core base in the Southeast; and the Kwankwassiya of Rabiu Kwankwaso, former governor of Kano State in the Northwest. Bola Tinubu of the ruling party won the disputed election with 36.61% of the vote, though both runners-up claimed victory and litigation continued in an election tribunal. Tinubu was inaugurated on the 29th of May 2023. His government faced ongoing domestic challenges, including widespread kidnapping in Nigeria. On the 29th of May 2024, Tinubu signed a law reinstating Nigeria, We Hail Thee, the national anthem from 1960 to 1978, replacing Arise, O Compatriots. The United States carried out a strike against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria on the 25th of December 2025 at the request of Tinubu's government, marking the first foreign military intervention in post-independence Nigeria. U.S. President Donald Trump stated the strike was to protect against alleged violence against Christians in the north. Nigeria is a federal republic modeled after the United States, with 36 states and the capital Abuja as an independent unit. The executive power is exercised by the President. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government. The president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. State governors, like the president, are elected for four years and may serve a maximum of two terms. The president's power is limited by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population. The Nigerian president is elected in a modified two-round system. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes and more than 25% of the votes in at least 24 of the 36 states. If no candidate reaches this hurdle, a second round of voting takes place between the leading candidate and the next candidate who received the majority of votes in the highest number of states. By convention, presidential candidates take a running mate, candidate for the vice presidency, who is both ethnically and religiously the opposite of themselves. There is no law prescribing this, yet all presidential candidates since the existence of the Fourth Republic until 2023 adhered to this rule. However, this principle of religious and ethnic diversity in leadership was ignored in the 2023 General Elections, where the candidate for the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Muslim, selected another Muslim, Senator Kashim Shettima, as running mate. Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 local government areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South. Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million, from largest to smallest: Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area. The south of the country in particular is characterized by very strong urbanization and a relatively large number of cities. According to an estimate from 2015, there are 20 cities in Nigeria with more than 500,000 inhabitants, including ten cities with a population of one million. The Constitution of Nigeria is the supreme law of the country. There are four distinct legal systems in Nigeria, which include English law, common law, customary law, and Sharia law: English law in Nigeria consists of the collection of British laws from colonial times. Common law is the collection of authoritative judicial decisions in the field of civil law, so-called precedents, that have been handed down in the country concerned, in this case Nigeria. This system is mainly found in Anglo-Saxon countries; in continental Europe, on the other hand, codified and, as far as possible, abstracted civil law predominates, as in the Napoleonic Code in France. Customary law is derived from indigenous traditional norms and practices, including the dispute resolution meetings of pre-colonial Yoruba land secret societies and the Èkpè and Okónkò of Igboland and Ibibioland. Sharia in Nigeria, also known as Islamic Law, used to be used only in Northern Nigeria, where Islam is the predominant religion. It is also being used in Lagos State, Oyo State, Kwara State, Ogun State, and Osun State by Muslims. Muslim penal codes are not the same in every state and they differentiate in punishment and offences according to religious affiliation, for example, alcohol consumption and distribution. The country has a judicial branch, the highest court of which is the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centerpiece of its foreign policy. One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship with Israel throughout the 1960s. Israel sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings. Nigeria's foreign policy was put to the test in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in Southern Africa. Nigeria backed the African National Congress by taking a committed tough line about the South African government. Nigeria was a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity, now the African Union, and had tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as the standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States and ECOMOG, especially during the Liberia and Sierra Leone civil wars. With this Africa-centered stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence and has maintained membership since that time. Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self-government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organized an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed South-South linkages on a variety of fronts. Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime. Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s and maintains membership in OPEC, which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries. Since 2000, Chinese-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10.3 billion dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016. However, the structure of the Chinese-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. Chinese exports account for around 80 per cent of total bilateral trade volumes. This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China. Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian industry under such arrangements. Continuing its Africa-centered foreign policy, Nigeria introduced the idea of a single currency for West Africa known as the Eco under the presumption that it would be led by the naira. But on the 21st of December 2019, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, Emmanuel Macron, and multiple other UEMOA states announced that they would merely rename the CFA franc instead of replacing the currency as originally intended. As of 2021, the Eco currency has been delayed to 2027. The Nigerian Armed Forces are the combined military forces of Nigeria. It consists of three uniformed service branches: the Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, and Nigerian Air Force. The President of Nigeria functions as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, exercising his constitutional authority through the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for the management of the military and its personnel. The operational head of the AFN is the Chief of the Defence Staff, who is subordinate to the Nigerian Defence Minister. With a force of more than 223,000 active personnel, the Nigerian military is one of the largest uniformed combat services in Africa. Nigeria has 143,000 troops in the armed forces, army 100,000, navy 25,000, air force 18,000, and another 80,000 personnel for gendarmerie and paramilitary in 2020, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Nigeria spent just under 0.4 per cent of its economic output, or US$1.6 billion, on its armed forces in 2017. For 2022, US$2.26 billion has been budgeted for the Nigerian armed forces, which is just over a third of Belgium's defense budget, US$5.99 billion. Boko Haram and the bandit conflict have been responsible for numerous serious attacks with thousands of casualties since mid-2010. Since then, according to the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker, over 41,600 lives have been lost to this conflict, as of October 2022. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR counts about 1.8 million internally displaced persons and about 200,000 Nigerian refugees in neighboring countries. The Boko Haram-affected states agreed in February 2015 to establish an 8,700-strong Multinational Joint Task Force to jointly fight Boko Haram. By October 2015, Boko Haram had been driven out of all the cities it controlled and almost all the counties in northeastern Nigeria. In 2016, Boko Haram split and in 2022, 40,000 fighters surrendered. The splinter group ISWAP, Islamic State in West Africa, remains active. The fight against Boko Haram, other sectarians, and criminals, has been accompanied by increasing police attacks. The Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker counted 1,086 deaths from Boko Haram attacks and 290 deaths from police violence in the first 12 months of its establishment in May 2011. In the 12 months after October 2021, 2,193 people died from police violence and 498 from Boko Haram and ISWAP, according to the NST. The Nigerian police are notorious for vigilante justice. The Niger Delta saw intense attacks on oil infrastructure in 2016 by militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, the Ijaw National Congress and the Pan Niger Delta Forum. In response, the new Buhari government pursued a dual strategy of repression and negotiation. In late 2016, the Nigerian federal government resorted to the gambit of offering the militant groups a 4.5 billion naira, US$144 million, contract to guard oil infrastructure. Most accepted. The contract was renewed in August 2022, but led to fierce disputes among the above-mentioned groups over the distribution of the funds. Representatives speak of war, against each other. The high propensity for violence and the pettiness of the leaders, as well as the complete absence of social and environmental arguments in this dispute give rise to fears that the militant groups, despite their lofty names, have discarded responsibility for their region and ethnic groups and have moved into the realm of protection rackets and self-enrichment. In any case, the pipelines in the Niger Delta are not very effectively guarded, the pollution of the Niger Delta with stolen crude oil and illegally produced heavy fuel oil continued unhindered after 2016. In central Nigeria, conflicts between Muslim Hausa-Fulani herders and indigenous Christian farmers flared up again, especially in Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba and Benue states. In individual cases, these clashes have claimed several hundred lives. Conflict over land and resources is increasing due to the ongoing desertification in northern Nigeria, population growth and the generally tense economic situation. In June 2022, a massacre took place in the St. Francis Xavier Church, in Owo. The Government blamed ISWAP for the murder of over 50 parishioners, but locals suspect Fulani herdsmen's involvement.

Economy and Resources

Nigeria's economy is the fourth largest in Africa, the 31st-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 30th-largest by PPP. In 2022, its GDP, PPP, per capita was US$9,148, which is less than South Africa, Egypt and Morocco, but slightly higher than Ghana and Ivory Coast. As of 2023, Nigeria's economy is classified as lower-middle-income. Before 1999, economic development was hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. In the decades thereafter, the restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms led to rapid growth. In 2011, Citigroup projected that Nigeria would have the highest average GDP growth in the world between 2010 and 2050. Nigeria is an economic leader in Africa in several industries, including energy, financial markets, pharmaceuticals, and entertainment. Its financial services sector is well-developed, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds, and investment banks. After petroleum, the largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad. Nigeria also has an abundant supply of under-exploited natural resources, including coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. The country's gold production in 2015 was 8 metric tons. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy. In 2021, about 23.4% of Nigeria's GDP is contributed by agriculture, forestry and fishing combined. Nigeria is the world's largest producer of cassava. Additional major crops include maize, rice, millet, yam beans, and guinea corn, sorghum. Cocoa is the principal agricultural export, and one of the country's most significant non-petroleum products. Nigeria is also one of the world's top twenty exporters of natural rubber, generating $20.9 million in 2019. Before the Nigerian Civil War and the oil boom, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food. Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria. Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself. It spends US$6.7 billion yearly for food imports, four times more than revenues from food export. The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s. Nigeria's rice production increased by 10% from 2017/18 to 2021/22, reaching 5 million tonnes per year, but it failed to keep up with rising demand. Consequently, rice imports remained steady at 2 million tonnes annually. In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin and other neighboring countries to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost local production. Until now, Nigeria exported unhusked rice but had to import husked rice, the country's staple food. The rice mill in Imota, near Lagos, is designed to handle the processing at home, improve the balance of trade and the labor market, and save transport and middlemen costs. When fully operational at the end of 2022, the plant, the largest south of the Sahara, is expected to employ 250,000 people and produce 2.5 million 50-kg bags of rice annually. The plant was inaugurated in 2023 with the commencement of full production. Nigeria is the 15th largest producer of petroleum in the world, the 6th largest exporter, and has the 9th largest proven reserves. Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy and politics, accounting for about 80% of government earnings. Nigeria also has the 9th largest proven natural gas reserves estimated by OPEC; the government's value of its about 206.53 trillion cubic feet has been valued at $803.4 trillion. Natural gas is seen as having the potential to unlock an economic miracle on the Niger River. Nigeria each year loses to gas flaring an estimate of US$2.5 billion, and over 120,000 barrels of oil per day to crude theft in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region. This has led to piracy and conflict for control in the region and has led to disruptions in production preventing the country from meeting its OPEC quota and exporting petroleum at full capability. Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources. The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or south-south region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of all Nigerian petroleum at that time. Petrol was Nigeria's main import commodity until 2021, accounting for 24% of import volume. The Niger Delta Nembe Creek oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from the middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of. Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell said it was finalizing its interests in four Nigerian oil fields. The supply of natural gas to Europe, threatened by the Russo-Ukrainian war, pushed projects to transport Nigerian natural gas via pipelines to Morocco or Algeria. As of May 2022, however, there are no results on this yet. Nigeria's energy consumption is much more than its generation capacity. Most of the energy comes from traditional fossil fuels, which account for 73% of total primary production. The rest is from hydropower, 27%. Since independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Nigeria opened 2004 a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. In 2007, President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power to meet its growing energy needs. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State and Kogi State. The sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant. According to the survey, 94% of Nigerians are connected to the national grid, but only 57% have their electricity consumption recorded by an electricity meter. Only 1% of Nigerians surveyed reported having electricity 24 hours a day. 68% have electricity 1 to 9 hours a day, according to the NIO. Two-thirds of Nigerians, or 66%, pay up to 10,000 Naira, US$13, a month for electricity, which is almost 3% of the average income in Nigeria. Over two-thirds of respondents, or 67%, were willing to pay more for uninterrupted electricity supply. Power generators are owned by 21% of Nigerians, while 14% use solar energy. Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles, centered in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos, plastics and processed food. Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos. The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country is well known for handicrafts and shoes, known as Aba made. Nigeria has a market of 720,000 cars per year, but less than 20% of these are produced domestically. In 2016, Nigeria was the leading cement producer south of the Sahara, ahead of South Africa. Aliko Dangote, Nigeria's richest inhabitant, based his wealth on cement production, as well as agricultural commodities. According to its own information, the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited produces 1.3 million tonnes of steel per year. However, steel plants in Katsina, Jos and Osogbo no longer appear to be active. In June 2019, Nigeria EduSat-1 was deployed from the International Space.