40 Fun Facts About Nigerian History

Nigeria's defence ministry ordered 16 million tonnes of which material in 1974–75, jamming the Port of Lagos for a year?

Cement arrived in such volume that half the world's supply steered toward Lagos, far beyond what the port could unload. The ministry needed under three million tonnes for its own projects.

The Nok culture, first unearthed in a Kaduna State tin mine in 1928, is famed for figures made of which material?

Terracotta figures from Nok are the earliest known large-scale sculptures in sub-Saharan Africa. The first one surfaced 24 feet down in an alluvial tin mine.

Which novelist twice refused Nigeria's Commander of the Federal Republic honour, in 2004 and again in 2011?

Chinua Achebe said the reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made had not been addressed, let alone solved. He had served Biafra as a roving ambassador during the civil war.

Which Ogoni writer's 1995 hanging with eight others got Nigeria suspended from the Commonwealth?

Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged with eight other Ogoni activists at Port Harcourt prison on 10 November 1995. The Commonwealth suspension lasted more than three years.

Which military governor of the Eastern Region declared the Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967?

Odumegwu Ojukwu declared independence after an official vote of secession in the Eastern Region, months after peace talks collapsed. He handed over to his second in command in January 1970 and flew into exile.

Which former transport minister was found drugged in a crate at Stansted Airport in 1984, bound for Lagos?

Umaru Dikko's crate was labelled as diplomatic baggage, an apparent government-sanctioned kidnapping that soured relations with Britain. He had run transport under the civilian government toppled months earlier.

Despite their name, most Benin Bronzes looted in the 1897 British expedition are cast from which metal?

Brass of variable composition, an alloy of copper, zinc and lead, makes up most of the pieces, like most West African 'bronzes'. Thousands were carried off as Britain consolidated control of Southern Nigeria.

Which former military ruler won the 2015 election, the first time a sitting Nigerian president lost a re-election bid?

Muhammadu Buhari had ruled as a military head of state from 1983 to 1985 before winning at the ballot box on his fourth attempt. The incumbent conceded on 31 March 2015.

Which vice-president became acting president in February 2010 through a Senate 'doctrine of necessity'?

Goodluck Jonathan stepped up because the president had left for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia in November 2009. He won a full term in 2011 and conceded defeat on 31 March 2015.

Which playwright spent 22 months in prison during the civil war, later recounted in 'The Man Died'?

Wole Soyinka was declared a traitor and arrested after secretly meeting the Eastern Region's governor to try to avert the war. The notes he kept in his cell became the memoir.

Whose 2006 novel 'Half of a Yellow Sun', set in the Biafran war, won the 2007 Women's Prize for Fiction?

Chimamanda Adichie's novel follows characters whose lives are thrown into chaos when the 1967–1970 war breaks out. It was only her second novel.

Which founder of the West African Pilot newspaper became Nigeria's first President in the 1963 republic?

Nnamdi Azikiwe founded the paper in Lagos in 1937 to promote nationalism, then served as the first indigenous Governor-General before the republic. The presidency was largely ceremonial beside a prime minister.

Which general took power in a November 1993 coup and ruled until his sudden death at Aso Rock in June 1998?

Sani Abacha's family is alleged to have embezzled between $2 billion and $5 billion, money still being traced and returned decades later. His death opened the door to the 1999 handover.

Which presumed winner of Nigeria's annulled 1993 election died in military custody on the day of his scheduled release?

Moshood Abiola had declared himself the lawful president in Lagos in June 1994 and was jailed for it; he died on 7 July 1998, weeks after the general who held him. The vote he won is now marked as Democracy Day.

Which peninsula did Nigeria hand to Cameroon in 2008 after a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling?

Bakassi is routinely described as oil-rich, yet no commercially viable oil deposits have ever been found there. The last portion was ceded on 14 August 2008, two years after the first.

Which regional bloc was founded by the Treaty of Lagos on 28 May 1975 and now sits in Abuja?

ECOWAS took shape in Lagos with Nigeria as by far its largest member by population and economy. Its founding treaty was signed by fifteen West African states.

Nigeria Regiment battalions of the 81st West Africa Division fought the Japanese in which country's Arakan region?

Burma's Kaladan Valley was the division's ground in the second Arakan campaign from February to May 1944, covering the flank of XV Indian Corps. The 82nd West Africa Division followed it there.

The Kanem-Bornu Empire, whose rulers held the title mai for centuries, was based around which body of water?

Lake Chad's shores anchored an empire whose territory reached into today's Nigeria, Cameroon, Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Chad. Its first capital, Njimi, lay east of the lake.

Shell D'Arcy struck Nigeria's first commercial oil in January 1956 at which village in present-day Bayelsa State?

Oloibiri's field yielded Nigeria's first crude export in February 1958, initially at just 5,100 barrels a day. The discovery came on a Sunday, 15 January 1956.

Which Japanese architect designed the monumental core and business district of Nigeria's new capital, Abuja?

Kenzo Tange detailed the centre of a city whose overall master plan came from International Planning Associates; Abuja was built mainly in the 1980s. It replaced Lagos as capital on 12 December 1991.

Which head of state, assassinated in a failed 1976 coup, gives his name to Lagos's international airport?

Murtala Muhammed ruled from 29 July 1975 until soldiers in Lt. Col. Bukar Suka Dimka's abortive coup shot him in his car in Lagos on 13 February 1976. Days earlier his government had decreed the capital's move to Abuja.

Which military president moved the seat of government from Lagos to Abuja on 12 December 1991?

Ibrahim Babangida styled himself 'president' rather than head of state through eight years of military rule, and launched the Structural Adjustment Programme in 1986. He stepped aside in August 1993.

The January 1967 Aburi Accord, a failed attempt to keep Nigeria from civil war, was negotiated in which country?

Ghana's military leader, General Ankrah, chaired the talks at Aburi between the federal side and the Eastern Region's delegates. The accord broke down over rival interpretations, and war followed that July.

Which Kanem-Bornu ruler of around 1570–1603 bought muskets and hired Turkish advisers to train his gunmen?

Idris Alooma employed Turkish military advisers so his gunmen could make full use of his newly acquired muskets. He is remembered as the empire's most celebrated mai.

Which Oba of Benin was deposed and exiled after a British expedition sacked his capital in February 1897?

Ovonramwen, the thirty-fifth Oba, was sent to Calabar in September 1897, never allowed home, and died there in January 1914. His palace's looted art ended up in museums across Europe.

The Oyo Empire's ruler bore which title, checked by an Oyo Mesi council that could compel him to commit suicide?

Alaafin was the title, and the Oyo Mesi grew into a check that stopped him becoming an autocrat, compelling many Alaafins to take their own lives. Oyo was one of the only Yoruba states to field cavalry.

Which chartered firm, with George Goldie as vice-governor, sold its territories to Britain for £865,000 in 1900?

Royal Niger Company territories passed to the British Government on 1 January 1900 after its charter, granted in July 1886, was revoked the year before. The buyout laid the ground for the protectorates that followed.

Which Lagos engineer, called the father of Nigerian nationalism, founded the country's first political party in 1923?

Herbert Macaulay's Nigerian National Democratic Party was founded on 24 June 1923 to contest the new elective seats on the Lagos Legislative Council. He was also a surveyor, architect, journalist and musician.

Which Premier of the Northern Region, titled Sardauna of Sokoto, was assassinated in the coup of 15 January 1966?

Ahmadu Bello was the North's first and only premier, from 1954 until Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu's plotters killed him at his Kaduna home. He was a descendant of the Sokoto Caliphate's founder.

Which Western Region premier introduced free primary education and set up Africa's first television service in 1959?

Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group, also gave the region free health care for children. He was later jailed for treason in 1963 and freed by the military in 1966.

Which 1984 military-government campaign ordered Nigerians to queue at bus stops and arrive at work on time?

War Against Indiscipline was announced in March 1984 by Tunde Idiagbon, the Chief of Staff at Supreme Headquarters, and ran until September 1985. Its work-ethic phase opened on May Day to tackle lateness and truancy.

Which activist led marches of up to 10,000 women that forced the Alake of Egbaland to abdicate in 1949?

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti's Abeokuta Women's Union was protesting a tax on women; the Alake's abdication proved temporary. She was also the first woman in the town to drive a car, and mother of the musician Fela.

Biafra's leader flew to which West African country in January 1970, where its president granted him asylum?

Ivory Coast was one of only five countries to formally recognise Biafra, alongside Gabon, Haiti, Tanzania and Zambia. Its guest stayed there until a pardon brought him home in 1982.

Which poet, daughter of the Sokoto Caliphate's founder, created a cadre of women teachers called jajis?

Nana Asma'u left a large body of poetry in Arabic, Fula and Hausa, and her jajis travelled the caliphate training crops of learned women known as the 'yan-taru. She lived from 1793 to 1864.

Which Oba of Lagos signed the Treaty of Cession on 6 August 1861 under threat of naval bombardment?

Dosunmu resisted the terms but relented when Commander Bedingfield threatened to bombard Lagos, ceding the island to Britain. British records spell his name 'Docemo'.

Which officer became Biafra's acting head of state on 8 January 1970 and announced its surrender four days later?

Philip Effiong declared that 'the Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist' at Dodan Barracks in Lagos on 15 January 1970. He inherited a territory in turmoil, starvation and collapse.

Which Biafran airstrip, codenamed Annabelle, became Africa's second-busiest airport during the relief airlift?

Uli was the only operational 'airport' left in Biafra, and flights came in under cover of darkness without lights to dodge Nigerian aircraft. Only Johannesburg handled more traffic at the airlift's height.

Which businessman headed the Interim National Government for three months in 1993 before a palace coup removed him?

Ernest Shonekan, who had run the United African Company of Nigeria, was sworn in as head of state in August 1993 after the military president stepped aside. His defence minister overthrew him on 18 November.

Which 16-year Yoruba civil war of the late 1800s takes its name from the sound of cannon fire?

Kiriji War is an onomatopoeic name for the boom of the Ekiti-Parapo cannon, and the conflict is also called the Ekiti-Parapo War. A peace treaty was signed in 1886, but the war camps only dispersed in 1893.

Which Hausa warrior queen of Zazzau, now Zaria, is remembered for the earthen walls she had built around her cities?

Amina had her conquered lands ringed with earthworks that became commonplace across Hausaland until the British took Zazzau in 1904; many survive as ganuwar Amina, 'Amina's walls'. She lived from about 1533 to 1610.