Nigeria : a Political Review

Nigeria : A Political Review
            Nigeria is named after the Niger River. A British journalist in the 1890s named Flora Shaw suggested the name because of the river was a major presence in region and the name was accepted as the official name of the territories in the Niger Region. Nigeria has a vast geographic size, with many ecological, economic, and cultural variations. Today, The Federal Republic of Nigeria has a varied ethnic population of over 130 billion people. It is one of the most populated countries in Africa. Nigeria contains over 250 ethnic groups and many are divided into further subgroups. The official language of Nigeria is English but there are ethno linguistic categories that can be distinguished by sub regions of Nigeria these languages are: Hausa and Fulani in north, Yoruba in southwest, and Igbo in southeast and also Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, and Ijaw. These ethnic groups play an important role in the social and political structure of the country as traditional customs and ethnic allegiances have divided the country since its beginning.
              Nigeria was colonized by the British in 1860. The colonial rule increased the extraction of Nigeria’s natural resources. The British ruled through a policy know as an Indirect rule and allowed the traditional structures to become subordinates to the British governor. The British played off   the social and ethnic divisions to prevent the Nigerians from developing organized political resistance. This strengthened the collective identities of the multiple ethnic groups by creating political competition amongst them. Primarily the three largest ethnic groups : The Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo and the Yoruba. So when the British decided that they wanted to leave Nigeria, the prior facade of unity that the leaders of the ethnic groups had been destroyed and political rivalry became fiercer than ever. The British decided to divide Nigeria into a federation of 3 regions in 1954, each region was to have its...