Nigeria

B

Principal Cities

Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, main commercial centre, and one of its principal ports, has a population of 11,100,000 (2005 estimate). Ibadan, population 1,731,000 (2000 estimate), is the only other city with more than a million inhabitants. Cities with more than 225,000 inhabitants include Aba, Abeokuta, Ado Ekiti, Ede, Enugu, Ife, Ila, Ilesha, Ilorin, Iwo, Kaduna, Kano, Maiduguri, Mushin, Ogbomosho, Onitsha, Oshogbo, Port Harcourt, and Zaria. Many communities have more than 100,000 inhabitants. In December 1991 the federal capital moved from the coastal city of Lagos to Abuja in the centrally located Federal Capital Territory.

C

Religion

At least 50 per cent of Nigeria’s people are Muslim, the bulk of whom live in the Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri areas in the north. About 40 per cent of Nigerians are Christians; Roman Catholicism is centred in the south-east, while Methodism and other Christian denominations and sects have a strong following in various parts of both the south-east and south-west. Some 18 per cent practise traditional religions. In recent years ethnic and religious tension and rivalry has resulted in outbreaks of communal violence.

D

Language

Nigeria is known for having a high proportion of languages in comparison to other African countries. Of an estimated 2,058 languages in Africa, over 500 are thought to be spoken in Nigeria. The official language is English (first taken to Nigeria by European traders before colonization), used in educational, governmental, business, the media, and other official domains, but multilingualism is common among Nigerians through daily interaction and trade.

The names of the three main peoples in Nigeria (the Hausa, the Igbo (or Ibo), and the Yoruba) correspond to the languages spoken by those peoples. Yoruba (a Niger-Congo language) and Hausa (Chadic) are the most widely spoken languages (with over 18.5 million speakers of each in Nigeria itself), followed by Igbo (around 18 million), and then Fulfulde (over 7.5 million) and Kanuri (3 million). Edo, Efik, and Idoma are also important national languages.

Many Nigerians also speak Nigerian Pidgin English (creolized in some areas), which is mutually intelligible with some other West African pidgins. This acts as a lingua franca across the many languages spoken in Nigeria and its use is growing in literature, advertising, television, and radio.

E

Education and Culture

Within the boundaries of modern Nigeria are some of the earliest educational and artistic traditions in western Africa. Superimposed on these have been influences of British colonial rule and European missionary educational systems. The Benin Bronzes first brought to the notice of a wider world the country’s rich and ancient artistic and craft traditions. Post-colonial Nigeria has developed an equally rich artistic tradition, with painters, sculptors, and workers in metal, as well as a vigorous film and television industry. Modern Nigerian literature is particularly rich. During the 1970s an increasingly self-confident federal government sought to modernize Nigeria rapidly, using Western-style education as a major tool. Revenue from the sale of crude petroleum helped to finance such modernization.

E

1

Education

Traditional Koranic schools are widespread throughout the north, and missionaries brought Western education to the coastal areas as early as the 1830s. Until the 1970s, enrolment in Western-oriented schools was significantly higher in the south. In 1976 free primary education was established throughout Nigeria. Educational facilities are insufficient, however, and the adult illiteracy rate remains about 57 per cent. In 1994, some 16.1 million pupils were enrolled in primary schools and more than 4.8 million students attended secondary and tertiary schools. Under a new educational system introduced in 1982, primary schooling (officially compulsory) takes six years to complete. Secondary schooling is organized in two successive phases of three years each. In 1994, 1.7 per cent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) was spent on education.

Western-style higher education, begun in 1948 with the founding of the University of Ibadan, is found throughout the country. There are 31 universities and more than 380,000 students attend 133 higher education institutions. Other major institutions include Ahmadu Bello University (1962), in Zaria; the Obafemi Awolowo University (1961), in Ife; the University of Lagos (1962); and the University of Nigeria (1960), in Nsukka. British-style universities have been augmented by a growing system of American-influenced teachers’ colleges and technical colleges.