NIGERIA

Nigeria: an Overview

• British influence & control over what would become Nigeria grew through 19th century.

• series of constitutions after World War II granted colonial Nigeria greater autonomy;

• Nigeria became independent Republic in 1960.• Following nearly 16 years of military rule, a new

constitution was adopted in 1999, and a peaceful transition to civilian government was completed.

Geography

• Location: Western Africa, bordering the Gulf of Guinea, between Benin and Cameroon

• Bordered to the north by Niger + a sliver of Chad

• (Despite criminalization of slavery in 2003, muslim Niger continues to protect the practice of slavery

• Area: a wee bit bigger than twice the size of California• Natural resources: oil, natural gas, petroleum, tin,

iron ore, coal, limestone, niobium, lead, zinc, arable land

• arable land: 33.02%

Lagos

Nigeria

Nigeria does have a lot going for it.

• the largest population in Africa.• 1 in 5 Africans is a Nigerian.• some of the most fertile ag soil on the continent

– only a fraction of which is regularly cultivated.

• relatively well-educated population,– including at least 2 M Nigerian citizens w/ university

education.

• Vast oil & gas deposits have brought in more money than most other Africans can dream of.

Nigeria has had more than its share of trouble.

• Whether run by civilians or the military, the state has not lived up to expectations.

• At times, as during civil war of 1967-1970 over Biafra, it could be argued that there was no Nigerian state,

• if by that we mean an entity that can maintain basic law and order.

Even when the Nigerian state has enjoyed a modicum of stability, it has been

wracked by• Corruption• poverty• ethnic divisions . . . and corruption• poor organization . . . and corruption• sharp religious cleavages . . . corruption• poor leadership . . . and corruption

• So, • they get disillusioned,• steal a billion or so and • retire

These factors leave NIGERIA’s decision makers unable to carry out their policies in any kind of effective manner.

Nigeria

• Nigerian government continues to face the daunting task of

• institutionalizing democracy

• reforming a petroleum-based economy, – whose revenues have been squandered through corruption and

mismanagement, and

• In addition, Nigeria continues to experience longstanding ethnic and religious tensions.

• Although both the 2003 & the 2007 presidential elections were marred by significant irregularities & violence,

• Nigeria is currently experiencing its longest period of civilian rule since independence.

• Gen. elections two yrs ago (April 2007) marked the 1st civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in Nigeria's history.

Population: 135,031,164

• note: estimates explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS;– this can result in lower life expectancy,– higher infant mortality and death rates,– lower population and growth rates, and changes

in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2007 est.)

Age structure:

• 0-14 years: 42.2% (male 28,726,380/female 28,301,729)

• 15-64 years: 54.7% (male 37,543,678/female 36,277,038)

• 65 years and over: 3.1% (male 1,987,521/female 2,194,818) (2007 est.)

• Median age: 18.7 years

Population growth rate: 2.379% (2007 est.)

• Birth rate: 40.2 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)

• Death rate: 16.68 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)

• Net migration rate: 0.26 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)

Matters of Life and Death• Infant mortality rate: 2009 est.

total: 94.35 /1000 live births– Mexico 18.42, USA 6.26, Russia 10.56

• Life expectancy at birth: total population: 47.44 years male: 46.83 years female: 48.07 years (2007 est.)

• Total fertility rate: 5.45 children born/woman (2007 est.)

HIV / AIDS

• HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 5.4% (2003 est.)

• HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 3.6 million (2003 est.)

• HIV/AIDS - deaths: 310,000 (2003 est.)

Nigeria’s Ethnic groups:

• more than 250 ethnic groups;• the most populous , politically influential:

–Hausa-Fulani 29%–Yoruba 21%–Igbo (Ibo) 18%–Ijaw 10%–Kanuri 4%–Ibibio 3.5%–Tiv 2.5%

Religions:

• Muslim 49%• Christian 42%• Animism & other indigenous beliefs

9%

Languages:

• English (official)• Hausa• Fulani• Yoruba• Igbo (Ibo)

Literacy:

• definition: age 15+ & can read & write

• total population: 68%

• male: 75.7% • female: 60.6% (2003 est.)

• “Too seldom is the question asked, “is our children learning?”

- George Bush

Economic Conditions Perhaps the most tragic of

Nigeria’s problems is its failure to reach its

economic potential.

• Despite its substantial natural and human resources, Nigeria remains desperately poor.

• From 1965 until 1980, Nigeria's GDP grew by an average of 6.9 % per year, reflecting in large part the substantial growth it was able to achieve through limited industrial development and the export of oil.

• From 1980 to 1987, economy shrank by an average of 1.7% per yr– -- a total of over 40% for the period as a whole.

• When oil prices peaked in the early 1980s, GDP per capita averaged around $700 per year.

• By 1990, it had been cut by more than half.• Present oil prices either give a basis for hope . . . or,

for unprecedented levels of corruption

“Oil is a curse which means only poverty, hunger, disease and exploitation.”- Emanuel Nnadozie in Oil and Socioeconomic Crisis in

Nigeria

Oil flare in the delta

• Oil flares, burning right out of the ground, are also a common sight in the Niger Delta.

• Noxious fumes, carcinogens, things that make some infants actually die in their sleep, sinking down to the earth, right there in their village."

Half of Nigeria lives below the poverty line

Elites - a few don’t

NiNigergeriaiaImpact of the Past

Earliest Civilizations

• Nigeria was home to civilizations before Europeans came

• The 1st inhabitants of what is now Nigeria were thought to have been the Nok people (500 B.C.–c. A.D. 200).

• Nok settled the Jos Plateau– Iron Smelters– Grain Farmers

Yoruba - 11Yoruba - 11thth Century AD. Century AD.

• a series of city states in the westa series of city states in the west• The kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in the The kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in the

western block of Nigeria became western block of Nigeria became prominent about 700-900 and 1400 prominent about 700-900 and 1400 respectively. respectively.

• Yoruba mythology believes that Ile-Yoruba mythology believes that Ile-Ife is the source of the human race Ife is the source of the human race and that it predates any other and that it predates any other civilization. civilization.

Yoruba

Ifẹ - Ifẹ - noted noted forfor itsits

terra cotta terra cotta and and bronze bronze heads.heads.

Northern cities have historyrecorded back to 1000 A.D.

• The Kanuri, Hausa, and Fulani peoples migrated in.

• the empire of Kanem controlled the area from the end of the 11th century to the 14th.

• Islamic forces invaded in 13th century,

The Fula or Fulani or Fulbe

Islam Arrives

• Arrived from the Sudan region• Northern Nigeria, 9th century• Hausa and Fulani in the North converted• Later in 1800’ a single Islamic State is created

in the north, Sokoto Caliphate

Slave Trade• Set up by Muslim

Arabs in 8th century

• Within a 1000 yrs 16 million Africans were enslaved

• Transported first to Middle East and later all over the world

Fulani empire• ruled region from beginning of 19th century

until British annexed Lagos in 1851• seized control of rest of the region by 1886.• It formally became the Colony and

Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914. • During World War I, native troops of the West

African frontier force joined with French forces to defeat the German garrison in the Cameroons.

Southwest Nigeria

• Yoruba Kingdom• Founded in 1400’s

– Yoruba Kingdom at its height from 17th to 19th century

– Attained high level of political organization

Benin Kingdom - South Central

• Established a Rule of Law– Courts, bureaucracy

• Developed efficient Army• Skilled artisans

– traded goods throughout the world

Split in Nigeria’s Religions Today

• 50% Muslim

• 40% Christian• 10% Other religions/beliefs• Muslims in the North• Christians in the South

Is Nigeria one

country?

• Difficult to combine the Muslim north and Christian south.

• Muslims resent being ruled by non-Muslims • caused and still causes trouble for Nigerian unity today.

British Influence• Following the Napoleonic

Wars • the British Expanded into

Nigeria

► 1850’s set up posts around Lagos► 1861-1914 the Colony & Protectorate of Nigeria

► Indirect rule of local leaders

Towards Independence

• 1884-85 Berlin Conference on Africa• 1914 Nigeria a unified single colony• 1920 National Congress of British West Africa• 1923 Nigerian National Democratic Party

formed• 1951 Constitutions go into effect• 1960 Independence

Oct. 1, 1960, Nigeria gained independence

• became a member of Commonwealth of Nations joined the United Nations.

• Organized as a loose federation of self-governing states,

• An independent Nigeria faced the overwhelming task of

unifying a country with 250 ethnic & linguistic groups.

• Rioting broke out in 1966,• military leaders, primarily of Ibo ethnicity,

seized control.• In July, a 2nd military coup put Col. Yakubu

Gowon in power, a choice unacceptable to the Ibos.

• Also in 1966, the Muslim Hausas massacred Christian Ibos in the north.

• Thousands of Ibos fled to refuge in the eastern region, which declared its independence as the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967.

• Civil war broke out. • Jan. 1970, after 31 months of civil war, Biafra

surrendered to the federal government.

Military Coups Shift Power

• Gowon's 9-yr rule was ended in 1975 by a bloodless coup that made Army Brig. Gen. Muritala Rufai Mohammed the new chief of state.

• The election of Alhaji Shehu Shagari as president in 1979 established the return of civilian leadership

• An oil boom in the 1970s buoyed the economy and • by the 1980s Nigeria was considered an exemplar of

African democracy and economic well-being.

• The military again seized power in 1984, only to be followed by another military coup the following year.

• Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida announced that the country would be returned to civilian rule, but after the presidential election of June 12, 1993, he voided the results.

• Nevertheless, Babangida resigned as president in August.

• In Nov the military, headed by defense minister Sani Abacha, seized power again.

Abacha's reign

• oil-rich country Corruption and notorious governmental inefficiency

• a harshly repressive military regime • international pariah.• A UN fact-finding mission in 1996 reported

that Nigeria's “problems of human rights are terrible and the political problems are terrifying.”

• During the 1970s, Nigeria had the 33rd highest per-capita income in the world, but

• by 1997 it had dropped to the 13th poorest. • The hanging of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995

because he protested against the government was condemned around the world.

• As leader of the multination peacekeeping force ECOMOG, Nigeria established itself as West Africa's superpower, intervening militarily in the civil wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

• But Nigeria's costly war efforts were unpopular with its own people, who felt Nigeria's limited economic resources were being unnecessarily drained.

• Abacha died of a heart attack in 1998 and was succeeded by another military ruler, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, who pledged to step aside for an elected leader by May 1999. The suspicious death of opposition leader Mashood Abiola, who had been imprisoned by the military ever since he legally won the 1993 presidential election, was a crushing blow to democratic proponents.

• In Feb. 1999, free presidential elections led to an overwhelming victory for Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former member of the military elite who was imprisoned for three years for criticizing the military rule. Obasanjo's commitment to democracy, his anticorruption drives, and his desire to recover billions allegedly stolen by the family and cronies of Abacha initially gained him high praise from the populace as well as the international community.

• But within 2 yrs, the hope of reform seemed doomed as economic mismanagement and rampant corruption persisted.

• Obasanjo's poor sense of priorities were symbolized in 2001 by his plans to build a $330 million national soccer stadium, an extravagance that exceeded the combined budget for both health and education.

• In April 2003, he was reelected.

Religion and Fighting Threaten Nigeria's Stability

• Nigeria's stability has been repeatedly threatened by fighting between fundamentalist Muslims and Christians over the spread of Islamic law (sharia) across the heavily Muslim north.

• One-third of Nigeria's 36 states is ruled by sharia law.

• More than 10,000 people have died in religious clashes since military rule ended in 1999.

Polio & Politics• Nothern Nigeria is under Sharia – Muslim law• In 2003, Muslim religious and political leaders in the

Kano region banned immunization against polio & other diseases

• Contended there was a western conspiracy to sterilize muslim girls and spread HIV

• Consequently, a massive polio outbreak spread through Nigeria, entering neighboring countries the following year.

• July 2004 Kano lifted its vaccination ban • Of the polio cases worldwide, 80 % were in Nigeria.

Since 2004, the Niger delta, Nigeria's oil-producing region has been

torn by insurgency

• desperately impoverished delta residents have seen little benefit from Nigeria's vast oil riches,

• rebel groups are fighting for a more equal distribution of wealth & greater regional autonomy.

• Violence by rebel groups has disrupted oil production and reduced output by about 20%.

• Nigeria is one of the world's largest oil producers• supplies the U.S. with one-fifth of its oil.

• In Aug. 2006 Nigeria handed over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon, in compliance with a 2002 World Court ruling.

April 2007 national elections• country’s first transition from one democratically

elected president to another– marred by widespread allegations of fraud, ballot

stuffing, violence, and chaos. – Supreme Court, just days before the election, ruled

that the election commission’s decision to remove Vice Pres. Atiku Abubakar, a leading candidate and a bitter rival of Pres. Olusegun Obsanjo, from the ballot was illegal.

• Ballots were reprinted, but showed only party symbols rather than the names of candidates.

Umaru Yar’Adua, the candidate of the governing PDP party, won the

election in a landslide, taking more than 24.6 million votes.

• 2nd place candidate Muhammadu Buhari tallied only about 6 million votes.

International observers called the vote flawed and illegitimate.

• The chief observer for the European Union said the results “cannot be considered to have been credible.”

• An election tribunal ruled in Feb. 2008 that although the election was indeed flawed, there was not evidence of rigging substantial enough to overturn the election results

the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta

• The rebel group in Nigeria's oil-producing region declared a cease-fire in September.

• Since the insurgency broke out in 2004, Nigeria's oil production has been reduced by more than one-half, from about 2.5 million barrels a day to 1.5 million.