Nigeria

The Federal Republic of Nigeria was home to three prominent empires prior to colonization by Europe. The Igbo Kingdom of Nri prospered from the 10th century until it lost its sovereignty to Britain in the early 20th century. The Yoruba Kingdoms of Ife and Oyo gained prominence during the 12th and 14th centuries, and holding sway over their territories until the late 18th century when power shifted to the Benin Empire. The Sokoto Caliphate of the north arose during the 19th century, and was one of the most powerful sub-Saharan empires in Africa prior to colonization of the contingent by European nations. The caliphate prospered until 1903, when pressure from European nations causes its overall decline. Britain was the first European nation to seek control over the land that is now Nigeria. On 1 January 1901, the region became a British protectorate, and in 1914 was renamed the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, administered as separate northern and southern provinces. Western education and the development of a modern economy proceeded more rapidly in the south than in the north, with consequences felt in Nigeria's political life ever since. Following the wave of African nationalism that began to take root in the 1950s, Nigeria began pressing for independence and was finally granted this by Britain in 1960.

Almost immediately the northern and southern regions of Nigeria began expressing their divergent cultural and religious identities in the form of three predominating political parties: the Nigerian People's Congress (NPC) in the Islamic north, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the largely Christian south, and the Yoruba-dominated Action Group (AG). In 1961, Southern Cameroon opted to join the Republic of Cameroon, while Northern Cameroon remained with Nigeria, which declared itself a Federal Republic two years later. In 1966, the nation was shaken by several back-to-back military coups d'etat, sparked initially by alleged corruption in the electoral and political processes. The resulting oppression and violence against certain ethnic groups, in particular the Igbo, led to the secession of Eastern Nigeria and the declaration of a new nation, the Republic of Biafra, under the leadership of Lt Colonel Emeka Ojukwu. When the Federal Army launched attacks against Biafra, Nigeria erupted into a civil war that lasted from 6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970. Made famous by the Biafran government's reliance on foreign mercenaries from Europe, Southern Africa and Israel, the fledgling republic was unable to sustain a continued onslaught by the much larger Nigerian military, backed as it was by the support of such states as the UK, Egypt, the USSR, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Niger, and Chad.