Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 mi2). With a population of more than 242 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where its capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria by population is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in Africa.
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 mi2). With a population of more than 242 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where its capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria by population is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in Africa.
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, Yoruba, and Igbo, together constituting over 60% of the total population. The official language is English. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion. The country is divided roughly in half between Muslims and Christians; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.
Nigeria has been home to several indigenous material cultures, pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC. The Nok culture, c. 1500 BC, marks one of the earliest known civilisations in the region. The Hausa Kingdoms inhabited the north, with the Edo Kingdom of Benin in the south, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri in the southeast, and in the southwest the Yoruba Empire of Oyo. The present-day territory of Nigeria was home to a vast array of city-states. In the early 19th century, the Fulani Jihads culminated in the Sokoto Caliphate. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures and incorporated traditional monarchs as a form of indirect rule.
Nigeria officially gained independence as a federation on 1 October 1960. From 1967 to 1970, the country was ravaged by civil war, followed by a series of military dictatorships (as well as an unstable democracy from 1979 to 1983), until a stable democracy was established in 1999. However, the work of the Nigerian Electoral Commission (INEC) has been criticised both nationally and internationally for lacking transparency.
Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest economies, alongside South Africa and Egypt. It is regarded as an emerging market by the World Bank. Nigeria is a regional power in Africa and a middle power in international affairs. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organisations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, NAM, the Economic Community of West African States, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC.
Etymology
The name Nigeria derives from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on 8 January 1897, by the British journalist Flora Shaw. The neighbouring Republic of Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name Niger, which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen ("river of rivers") used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu before 19th-century European colonialism. Before Flora Shaw suggested the name Nigeria, other proposed names included Royal Niger Company Territories, Central Sudan, Niger Empire, Niger Sudan, and Hausa Territories.
History
Prehistory
Kainji Dam excavations showed ironworking by the 2nd century BC. 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 Nok civilisation thrived between 1500 BC and 200 AD. It produced life-sized terracotta figures that are some of the earliest known sculptures in Africa and independently invented iron smelting by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier. 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.
Early history
The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa city state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of Daura, Biram, Katsina, Kingdom of Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century.
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 had developed one of the earliest city-states in Africa by the 8th century known as Ile Ife, which would become the heart of the later Ife Empire while Oyo and other Yoruba states became more 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 Kingdom of Benin, founded by the Edo people, was a major West African power. Its densely populated capital (Benin City) served as a central hub for regional and transatlantic trade in cloth, ivory, pepper, and salt.
Written documentation of Nigerian history from native sources dates back to at least the 14th century. In the 1390s, Mai Biri III Uthman wrote a letter to Barquq, Sultan of Egypt at the time. He complained about slave raids on the local Muslim population by Judham Arabs, who he described as polytheists who deviated from true religion.
The Kanem–Bornu Empire was a long-lived major Islamic power in the region. Originally based in the Kanem region, the ruling dynasty relocated southwest to Borno in the late fourteenth century. Kanem–Bornu established extensive diplomatic and trade networks reaching North Africa and Europe. Under rulers such as Mai Idris Alooma, much of Hausaland was brought into tributary status under Borno.
Pre-colonial era
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) in Yoruba land 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 labour; 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. Several kingdoms that directly or indirectly participated in the Atlantic slave trade were the Benin Empire in the south, the Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast. In contrast, the kingdoms associated with the Trans-Saharan slave trade were the Hausa states, as well as the Kanuri-led Kanem-Bornu Empire. Benin'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 foreign ethnic group, primarily traversed the semi-desert region with cattle. They largely avoided engaging in trade, agriculture, state-building, and other activities common among other West African peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms, He accused the Hausa of not being true Muslims and subsequently established the Sokoto Caliphate. The Sokoto Caliphate relied heavily on slavery, with large-scale plantation slavery, concubinage, and domestic servitude. While the primary source of new slaves were the newly conquered Hausa peoples, raids on non-Muslim communities and other ethnic groups accused of not being true Muslims persisted. The caliphate as a whole became one of the largest slave societies in 19th-century Africa.
This Sokoto Caliphate grew rapidly under Usman's rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The empire sought to link the eastern and western Sudan regions while attempting to expand southward into the Yoruba country. It conquered parts of the old Oyo Empire (modern-day Kwara), and attempted to penetrate deeper into the heart of Yorubaland. However, the Yoruba forces of Ibadan delivered a decisive defeat to the invaders at the Battle of Osogbo, halting their jihad and successfully protecting the sovereign integrity of Yoruba territory. The sultan sent out emirs to establish suzerainty over the previous conquered territories and promote Islamic civilisation; the emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labour 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.
A changing legal imperative (the outlawing of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support the widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The slave trade continued after the ban, as illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast from native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of slaves freed by Britain.
British colonisation and independence
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 1 January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a crown colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and travelled 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 (1901–1902), 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 defence as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organised a quick defence 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 13 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 organised Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "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 1907, resistance to European rule in the area had been quelled.
On 1 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.