Nigeria- A Story for Bedtime
Nigeria , is a federal
constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the
Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the
north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean.
The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa,
Igbo and Yoruba.
Nigeria is roughly
split half and half between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South; a
very small minority practice traditional religion.
The people of Nigeria
have an extensive history. Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation
of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE. The name Nigeria was taken from
the Niger River running through the country. The British colonised Nigeria in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, setting up administrative
structures and law while recognizing traditional chiefs. Nigeria became
independent again in 1960.
Nigeria is the most
populous country in Africa, the seventh most populous country in the world, and
the most populous country in the world in which the majority of the population
is black. Its oil reserves have brought great revenues to the country. It is
listed among the "Next Eleven" economies, and is a member of the
Commonwealth of Nations.
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 those of the
Islamic faith; and the Igbo and Christian-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.
Biafran
War – Military Era
The disequilibrium and
perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led in 1966 to
several back-to-back military coups. The first was in January and led by a
collection of young leftists under Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna
Nzeogwu. It was partially successful; the coup plotters murdered Prime Minister
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier Ahmadu Bello of the Northern Region and Premier
Ladoke Akintola of the Western Region. Despite this, they could not set up a
central government. President Nwafor Orizu was then pressured to hand over
government to the Nigeria Army, under the command of General JTU Aguyi-Ironsi.
The coup was
counter-acted by another successful plot, supported primarily by Northern
military officers and Northerners who favoured the NPC, it was engineered by
Northern officers, which allowed Lt Colonel Yakubu Gowon to become head of
state. This sequence of events led to an increase in ethnic tension and
violence. The Northern coup, motivated by ethnic and religious reasons,
resulted in the deaths of many military officers and civilians, especially
those of Igbo descent.
The violence against
the Igbo increased their desire for autonomy. By May 1967, the Eastern Region
voted to declare independence as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under
the leadership of Lt Colonel Emeka Ojukwu. The Nigerian Civil War began as the
Nigerian (Western and Northern) side attacked Biafra (South-eastern) on 6 July
1967 at Garkem. The 30 month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation
from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970. Estimates of the number of dead
in the former Eastern Region are between 1 and 3 million people, from warfare,
disease, and starvation, during the 30-month civil war .
During the oil boom of the 1970s, the federal government became the centre of
political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. Nigerians participated in a brief return to
democracy when Obasanjo transferred power to the civilian regime of Shehu
Shagari. The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt and incompetent by
virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. The military coup of Muhammadu
Buhari shortly after the regime's fraudulent re-election in 1984 was generally
viewed as a positive development by most of the population. Buhari promised
major reforms, but his regime was overthrown by another military coup in 1985.
The new head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, declared himself
president and commander in chief of the armed forces and the ruling Supreme
Military Council. He set 1990 as the official deadline for a return to
democratic governance. Babangida's tenure was marked by a flurry of political
activity: he instituted the International Monetary Fund's Structural Adjustment
Program (SAP) to aid in the repayment of the country's crushing international
debt, which most federal revenue was dedicated to servicing. He enrolled
Nigeria in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which aggravated religious
tensions in the country.
Babangida survived a military coup and pushed
back the promised return to democracy to 1992. When free and fair elections were
finally held on 12 June 1993. For some uncertain reasons, Babangida declared
that the results showing a presidential victory for Moshood Kashimawo Olawale
Abiola were null and void. Mass civilian violence erupted in protest, which
effectively shut down the country for weeks and forced Babangida to keep his
promise to relinquish office to a civilian-run government.
Ernest
Shonekan's caretaker transition government was overwhelmed in late 1993 by the
military coup of General Sani Abacha. He oversaw brutal rule using violence on
a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest. The regime came to an
end in 1998 when the dictator was found dead amid questionable circumstances.
Abacha's death yielded an opportunity for return to civilian rule.
Civilian
Era
Nigeria
regained democracy in 1999 when it elected Olusegun Obasanjo, the former
military head of state, as the new President of Nigeria ending almost 33 years
of military rule (from 1966 until 1999) excluding the short-lived second
republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in
coups d'état and counter-coups during the Nigerian military juntas of 1966–1979
and 1983–1998. Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle
government corruption and to hasten development.
The
civilian rule was able to curb Ethnic violence and a surge of militancy which arose in the
oil producing Niger Delta region due to marginalization of the region. The
Government of Umaru Yar'Adua of the
People's Democratic Party (PDP) which came into power in the general election
of 2007, implemented an amnesty program that brought the end of militancy in
the Delta region.
Yar'Adua
died on 5 May 2010. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's
replacement on 6 May 2010, becoming Nigeria's 14th Head of State, while his
vice, a former Kaduna state governor, Namadi Sambo, an architect, was chosen on
18 May 2010, by the National Assembly following President Goodluck Jonathan's
nomination for Sambo to be his Vice President.
Goodluck
Jonathan was reelected in April 2011, arguably one of the freest and fairest
elections held in the country.
Some Achievements of Democratic Gov
·
FREEDOM FROM INTERNATIONAL DEBT($32BILLION-
PARIS CLUB $1.5BILLION-LONDON CLUB)
·
PRIVATISATION AND INCREASE IN EXTERNAL
RESERVES
·
RECAPITALIZTION OF LOCAL BANKS
·
IMPROVED FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION AND
GRAFT
·
SUCCESS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST FAKE DRUGS
·
IMPROVED TELECOMUNICTION(LUNCHING 4 SATELLITES
AND OVER 80MILLION PHONE LINES)
·
JOB CREATION
AND
MANY MORE
Languages
There are currently about 521 spoken languages in Nigeria . This number includes 510
living languages, two second languages without native speakers and nine extinct
languages. In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one
language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate
the cultural and linguistic unity of the country. The choice of English as the
official language was partially related to the fact that a part of the Nigerian
population spoke English as a result of British colonization that ended in
1960.
The
major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of African
languages: the majority are Niger–Congo languages, such as Yoruba and Igbo; the
Hausa language is Afro-Asiatic; and Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily
Borno State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family. Even though most ethnic groups
prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language
is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes.
English as a first language is used only by a small minority of the country's
urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most
widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria itself (Igbo, Hausa
and Yoruba) but unlike the Yorubas and Igbos, the Hausas tend not to travel far
outside Nigeria itself.
With
the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of
communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest
of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardized languages from a
number of different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups.
Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as 'Pidgin' or 'Broken' (Broken
English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional
influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is
widely spoken within the Niger Delta Regions, predominately in Warri, Sapele,
Port Harcourt, Agenebode, Ewu, and Benin City
Religion
In
a report in 2003, 50.4% of Nigeria's population are Muslims, 48.2% are
Christians and 1.4% adhere to other religions.Among Christians, 27.8% are
Catholic, 31.5% are Protestant and 40.7% belong to other Christian
denominations. The core north is largely Muslim, there are large numbers of
both Muslims and Christians in the Middle Belt, including the Federal Capital
Territory. In the west of the country, especially in the Yorubaland, the
population is said to be evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, while
in the southeastern regions are predominantly Christians with widespread
traditional beliefs, Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists are the majority with
few traditional beliefs, while the Niger Delta region is mainly Christian.
The
most widely distributed daily devotional in the world- Rhapsody of Realities,
which is translated in over 158 languages is published by Nigerian Evangelists
Chris and Anita Oyakhilome.
Film
and Music
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Nigeria is home to the
third Largest movie industry in the world- NOLLYWOOD. With movie studios in
lagos , Abuja, portharcourt and Enugu. With actors like Jim Iyke, Emeka ike,
Ramsey Noah, Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jolade, Ini Edo, Aki and Paw Paw; Nigeria
has placed herself in the map of movie legends, towering in Africa and
competing strongly all around the world.
Nigeria has a role in the development of West African
highlife, afrobeat, and palm-wine music, which fuses native rhythms with
techniques imported from the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, and elsewhere.
Many
late 20th century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural
elements of various indigenous music with American Jazz and Soul to form
Afrobeat. JuJu music which is percussion
music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by
King Sunny Adé, is also from Nigeria. There is also fuji music, a Yoruba
percussion style, created and popularized by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde
Barrister. The is also the Afan Music invented and popularized by the Ewuborn
poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip hop movement in
Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa,
and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely
dominated by hip hop artists. Some famous musicians that come from Nigeria are
Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister,
Bennie King, Ebenezer Obey, Umobuarie Igberaese, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban,
Sade Adu, Wasiu Alabi, Bola Abimbola,Zaki Adze, Tuface Idibia, D'Banj and P
Square.
In
November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received
international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music
awards show in Abuja.
T.B.
Joshua's Emmanuel TV ,which is one of the most viewed television stations
across Africa, as well as LoveWorld SAT which is the first world-class
Christian broadcasting station, to beam out non-stop from the African continent
to the rest of the world; originating from Nigeria.
Cuisine
Nigerian
cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and
variety. Many different spices, herbs and flavourings are used in conjunction
with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups
often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and
lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried
in oil are plentiful and varied.
Sports
Soccer
is Nigeria's national sport and the country has its own Premier League of
football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the Super Eagles, has made
the World Cup on four occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, and most recently in 2010.
They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980 and 1994, and also hosted the
Junior World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer
Olympics (in which they beat Argentina).
The
nation's cadet team from Japan '93 produced some international players notably
Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African Footballer of the year who won the European
Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan (Italy),
Arsenal F.C. (London, UK), West Bromwich Albion (UK) and Portsmouth F.C. (UK).
Other players that graduated from the Junior teams are Celestine Babayaro (
Chelsea, UK), Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo (AC Millan, Italy), John Mikel
Obi(Chelsea, Uk).
Nigeria was once ranked fifth in the world
after the 1994 world cup. She still remains one of the top teams in Africa . Nigeria
is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field.
Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are
both former World Champions.
As
the Nation Nigeria celebrates her 52nd independence, on October 1 ,
the paths are surely laden with green and white pastures . May her life be a
continual script of greatness read to the delight of infant Africa , narrated
to the spectacle of young Europe and America , recited to amazement of
energetic asia and applauded by the rest of the world. God bless Nigeria
St.Prince Xavier/2012/ for
the INC
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