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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