Nigeria

sovereign state in West Africa

Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is the most populous country in Africa. It is geographically situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 sq mi), with a population of over 216 million. Nigeria was created by the British Empire during the colonisation of Africa, and gained independence in 1960. It consists of 200 ethnic groups speaking 500 languages, although the most-commonly spoken one is English and the largest groups are the Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. It has the largest economy in Africa and is a member of the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and OPEC. Its current head of state is President Bola Tinubu.

Nigeria, it's a beautiful country with a great potential and I believe that in that part of the continent, Nigeria, once it sorts out its own problems, have a crucial role to play, like South Africa has in the more southern part of our continent. —F. W. de Klerk
Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no 'Nigerians' in the same sense as there are 'English,' 'Welsh,' or 'French'. The word 'Nigerian' is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not. —Obafemi Awolowo


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Quotes

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  • My father tells a story about his father dying in a refugee camp. His father was a titled man in Igboland, which meant that he was a great man. He had one of the highest titles a man could have. But his hometown fell, so he had to leave and go to a refugee camp, and he died and he was buried in a mass grave. Which is just heartbreaking for a man, particularly a man like him. My father, who's the first son, and who takes his responsibilities very seriously, couldn't go to bury his father because the roads were occupied. He was in a different part of Biafra and so it took a year until ... he could go to the refugee camp. ... And he goes there and he says, 'I want to know where my father was buried.' And somebody waved very vaguely and said, 'Oh we buried the people there.' So it was a mass grave. So many people had died. And my father says he went there and he took a handful of sand, and he said he's kept the sand ever since. For me, that was one of the most moving things I had ever heard."
  • The last general election was anything but free and fair. The only political parties that could complain of election rigging are those parties that lacked the resources to rig. There is ample evidence that rigging and thuggery were relative to the resources available to the parties. This conclusively proved to us that the parties have not developed confidence in the presidential system of government on which the nation invested so much material and human resources.
    • Muhammadu Buhari, Buhari’s First Speech As Nigeria’s Military Head of State (December 1983)
  • Nigeria remains deeply concerned over the illicit trade, transfer, and circulation of small arms and light weapons. Their excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread in many regions of the world are having devastating humanitarian and socio-economic consequences, especially on the continent of Africa.
  • If Nigeria does nothing else it teaches you.....patience.
  • Nigeria earns 90 percent of its export revenue from oil sales, but it comes at a high human cost.
    • Amy Goodman Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America (2017) p 217
  • For Africa to move forward, Nigeria must be one of the anchor countries, if not the leading anchor country. It means that Nigeria must be good at home to be good outside. No doubt, our situation in the last decade or so had shown that we are not good enough at home; hence we are invariably absent at the table that we should be abroad.[[2]]
    • Olusegun Obasanjo, THE WAY OUT: A CLARION CALL FOR COALITION FOR NIGERIA MOVEMENT. Open letter to President Buhari.
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  Encyclopedic article on Nigeria on Wikipedia