Africa’s giant hosts 250 peoples and a Nok beginning
Nigeria, between the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea, covers 923,769 square kilometres and holds more than 242 million people, making it Africa’s most populous country and sixth worldwide. Over 250 ethnic groups speak some 500 languages, and the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo together exceed sixty percent of the population.
Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin surround the federation of 36 states plus the capital territory around Abuja. Lagos is the largest city and Africa’s second-biggest metropolis. English is official, and the population divides roughly evenly between Muslims and Christians. Alongside South Africa and Egypt it ranks among the continent’s largest economies, and it helped found the African Union and belongs to OPEC.
Flora Shaw, a British journalist, coined the name on 8 January 1897 from the Niger River, beating alternatives such as Central Sudan and Niger Sudan. The river’s own name probably alters a Tuareg phrase meaning river of rivers. Iron smelting at Lejja in the Nsukka area may date to 2000 BC, and excavations at Kainji Dam show ironworking by the 2nd century BC with no bronze stage between. The Nok people, flourishing from 1500 BC to 200 AD, made life-sized terracotta figures among Africa’s earliest sculptures.
The Kano Chronicle traces that Hausa city to around 999, with Daura, Katsina, Zazzau and others dating to the 10th century. The Igbo kingdom of Nri lasted from the 10th century until Britain ended its independence in 1911, and nearby Igbo-Ukwu produced West Africa’s oldest lost-wax bronzes. Yoruba Ile-Ife was a city-state by the 8th century, Oyo rose later, and Edo Benin City traded cloth, ivory and pepper. In the 1390s the Bornu ruler Biri III Uthman wrote to Egypt’s Sultan Barquq protesting slave raids.
Portuguese traders reached Lagos and Calabar in the 16th century, and Calabar, Badagry and Bonny became major slave ports. Usman dan Fodio’s jihad created the Sokoto Caliphate early in the 19th century. Britain merged its northern and southern protectorates in 1914. Independence came on 1 October 1960, civil war followed from 1967 to 1970, and stable democracy began in 1999.
Source: Nigeria
