THE NORTHERN EMPIRE was composed of the Borno Empire, some Hausa states (Zazzau, Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Birori, Daura) and some other groups (Gwari, Kebbi, Nupe, Yelwa…)
THE CALABAR KINGDOM is the oldest kingdom, and had the oldest contact with the Europeans. It is believed to have been founded around 1000 A.D. and has the oldest church built in Nigeria dating back to 1850. The belief is that this kingdom was founded by twins, and it stretched into parts of current-day Cameroon.
THE ODUDUWA EMPIRE consisted of two main groups. One of them was the indigenous people, whose central religious and cultural center was Ile-Ife, which is now made up of the Yoruba people. The other groups were the Berbels, who eventually formed the Hausa states and the Borno states. (This empire has a lot of interesting stories and legends attached to it. For instance, Oduduwa is considered the creator of the earth, and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to myth, Oduduwa founded the city of Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings and presided over cult rituals.)
THE BENIN EMPIRE was also powerful and stretched to reach some of current-day Ghana. It was very well known for its African sculpturing.
In the 1800s, the British started to reside in parts of these kingdoms and empires. In 1914, Nigeria was formed by combining the Northern and Southern Protectorates and the Colony of Lagos. For administrative purposes it was divided into four units:
- The Colony of Lagos
- The Northern Provinces
- The Eastern Provinces
- The Western Provinces
Between 1914 and 1922, Nigeria was presided over by a Governor-General. In 1922 as part of the constitution of the time, the British introduced the principle of direct election into the Legislative council
In 1951, a new constitution elevated the provinces to regional status. The National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) had control of the Eastern Region government and the Action Group (AG) had control of the Western Region. By 1957, the Eastern and Western Regions attained self-governing status. In 1959, the Northern Region attained self-governing status.
On October 1, 1960, Nigeria obtained its independence. At this time, Northern and Southern Cameroon were given the option of staying as part of Nigeria or leaving Nigeria. Southern Cameroon decided to leave Nigeria, but Northern Cameroon stayed.
On October 7, 1960, Nigeria was admitted to the United Nations as the 99th member. One of the earliest and most significant contributions to the UN was to furnish troops for the peacekeeping operation in Zaire in the early 1960s. Later on, the main thrust of Nigeria’s activism on the world stage was to eradicate apartheid and racism from Africa. Also, in 1960, a Federal Government based on the Parliamentary system was created. In 1963, Nigeria became a republic.
By 1964, the Nigerian army units had formed the backbone of the UN force. In January of 1966, a group of army officers consisting mostly of the Ibo people, and led by General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, overthrew the central and regional governments, killed the prime minister, took control of the government and got rid of the federal system of government and replace it with a central government with many Ibos as advisors. This caused a lot of riots and a lot of Ibos were killed in the process. In July of the same year, a group of northern army officers revolted against the government (it seems this started a long history of military coups), killed General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and appointed the army chief of staff, General Yakubu Gowon as the head of the new military government.
In 1967, Gowon moved to split the existing 4 regions of Nigeria into 12 states. However, the military governor of the Eastern Region (Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu) refused to accept the division of the Eastern Region and declared the Eastern Region an independent republic called Biafra. This led to a civil war between Biafra and the remainder of Nigeria. The war started in June 1967 and continued until Biafra surrendered on January 15, 1970 after over 1 million people had died. During the early 1970s a lot of time was spent reconstructing the areas that were formerly part of Biafra
Around this time, the petroleum industry was booming and the economy was recovering from the effects of the civil war, though there were still problems with inflation, high unemployment, decline in the price of peanuts and cocoa and a drought. In 1971, Nigeria joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The prolonged drought in 1973 led to the death of thousands of livestock, the suffering of farms and fishing industry. This, in combination with the oil boom made a lot of people to move away from farms into cities. The oil boom of the early 1970s brought a lot of revenue to Nigeria, but this revenue stayed mostly in the government and was not shared with the people.
In 1976, Nigeria was further broken into 19 states with plans to move the country’s capital from Lagos to Abuja in the works. In 1987, 2 more states were created. In 1991, 9 more states were created, resulting in 30 states in all. In 1991, Abuja was formed as new (more central) section of the country and became the new capital of Nigeria. Abuja took portions of the then Niger, Kogi, and Plateau states to form the territory. Recently, 6 more states were created making it a total of 36 states. Though Biafra war was the most deadly and violent of the wars in Nigeria; disputes are common in Nigeria over land, ethnic and religious differences. For instance, in 1992 there were major clashes in the northern part of the country between Christians and Muslims and over 3,000 people were killed in these clashes.