essay on nigerian culture

• Countries and Their Cultures
• Culture of Nigeria

Culture Name

Orientation.

Identification. Though there is archaeological evidence that societies have been living in Nigeria for more than twenty-five hundred years, the borders of modern Nigeria were not created until the British consolidated their colonial power over the area in 1914.

The name Nigeria was suggested by British journalist Flora Shaw in the 1890s. She referred to the area as Nigeria, after the Niger River, which dominates much of the country's landscape. The word niger is Latin for black.

More than 250 ethnic tribes call present-day Nigeria home. The three largest and most dominant ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo (pronounced ee-bo). Other smaller groups include the Fulani, Ijaw, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, and Edo. Prior to their conquest by Europeans, these ethnic groups had separate and independent histories. Their grouping together into a single entity known as Nigeria was a construct of their British colonizers. These various ethnic groups never considered themselves part of the same culture. This general lack of Nigerian nationalism coupled with an ever-changing and often ethnically biased national leadership, have led to severe internal ethnic conflicts and a civil war. Today bloody confrontations between or among members of different ethnic groups continue.

Location and Geography. Nigeria is in West Africa, along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Guinea, and just north of the equator. It is bordered on the west by Benin, on the north by Niger and Chad, and on the east by Cameroon. Nigeria covers an area of 356,669 square miles (923,768 square kilometers), or about twice the size of California.

Nigeria has three main environmental regions: savanna, tropical forests, and coastal wetlands. These environmental regions greatly affect the cultures of the people who live there. The dry, open grasslands of the savanna make cereal farming and herding a way of life for the Hausa and the Fulani. The wet tropical forests to the south are good for farming fruits and vegetables—main income producers for the Yoruba, Igbo, and others in this area. The small ethnic groups living along the coast, such as the Ijaw and the Kalabari, are forced to keep their villages small due to lack of dry land. Living among creeks, lagoons, and salt marshes makes fishing and the salt trade part of everyday life in the area.

The Niger and Benue Rivers come together in the center of the country, creating a "Y" that splits Nigeria into three separate sections. In general, this "Y" marks the boundaries of the three major ethnic groups, with the Hausa in the north, the Yoruba in the southwest, and the Igbo in the southeast.

Politically, Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states. The nation's capital was moved from Lagos, the country's largest city, to Abuja on 12 December 1991. Abuja is in a federal territory that is not part of any state. While Abuja is the official capital, its lack of adequate infrastructure means that Lagos remains the financial, commercial, and diplomatic center of the country.

Demography. Nigeria has the largest population of any African country. In July 2000, Nigeria's population was estimated at more than 123 million people. At about 345 people per square mile, it is also the most densely populated country in Africa. Nearly one in six Africans is a Nigerian. Despite the rampages of AIDS, Nigeria's population continues to grow at about 2.6 percent each year. The Nigerian population is very young. Nearly 45 percent of its people are under age fourteen.

Major urban centers include Lagos, Ibidan, Kaduna, Kano, and Port Harcourt.

Linguistic Affiliations. English is the official language of Nigeria, used in all government interactions and in state-run schools. In a country with more than 250 individual tribal languages, English is the only language common to most people.

Unofficially, the country's second language is Hausa. In northern Nigeria many people who are not ethnic Hausas speak both Hausa and their own tribal language. Hausa is the oldest known written language in West Africa, dating back to before 1000 C.E.

The dominant indigenous languages of the south are Yoruba and Igbo. Prior to colonization, these languages were the unifying languages of the southwest and southeast, respectively, regardless of ethnicity. However, since the coming of the British and the introduction of mission schools in southern Nigeria, English has become the language common to most people in the area. Today those who are not ethnic Yorubas or Igbos rarely speak Yoruba or Igbo.

Pidgin, a mix of African languages and English, also is common throughout southern Nigeria. It basically uses English words mixed into Yoruban or Igbo grammar structures. Pidgin originally evolved from the need for British sailors to find a way to communicate with local merchants. Today it is often used in ethnically mixed urban areas as a common form of communication among people who have not had formal education in English.

Symbolism. Because there is little feeling of national unity among Nigeria's people, there is little in terms of national symbolism. What exists was usually created or unveiled by the government as representative of the nation. The main national symbol is the country's flag. The flag is divided vertically into three equal parts; the center section is white, flanked by two green sections. The green of the flag represents agriculture, while the white stands for unity and peace. Other national symbols include the national coat of arms, the national anthem, the National Pledge (similar to the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States), and Nigeria's national motto: Peace and Unity, Strength and Progress.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation. Every ethnic group in Nigeria has its own stories of where its ancestors came from. These vary from tales of people descending from the sky to stories of migration from far-off places. Archaeologists have found evidence of Neolithic humans who inhabited what is now Nigeria as far back as 12,000 B.C.E.

The histories of the people in northern and southern Nigeria prior to colonization followed vastly different paths. The first recorded empire in present-day Nigeria was centered in the north at Kanem-Borno, near Lake Chad. This empire came to power during the eighth century C.E. By the thirteenth century, many Hausa states began to emerge in the region as well.

Trans-Sahara trade with North Africans and Arabs began to transform these northern societies greatly. Increased contact with the Islamic world led to the conversion of the Kanem-Borno Empire to Islam in the eleventh century. This led to a ripple effect of conversions throughout the north. Islam brought with it changes in law, education, and politics.

The trans-Sahara trade also brought with it revolutions in wealth and class structure. As the centuries went on, strict Islamists, many of whom were poor Fulani, began to tire of increasing corruption, excessive taxation, and unfair treatment of the poor. In 1804 the Fulani launched a jihad, or Muslim holy war, against the Hausa states in an attempt to cleanse them of these non-Muslim behaviors and to reintroduce proper Islamic ways. By 1807 the last Hausa state had fallen. The Fulani victors founded the Sokoto Caliphate, which grew to become the largest state in West Africa until its conquest by the British in 1903.

In the south, the Oyo Empire grew to become the most powerful Yoruban society during the sixteenth century. Along the coast, the Edo people established the Benin Empire (not to be confused with the present-day country of Benin to the west), which reached its height of power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

As in the north, outsiders heavily influenced the societies of southern Nigeria. Contact with Europeans began with the arrival of Portuguese ships in 1486. The British, French, and Dutch soon followed. Soon after their arrival, the trade in slaves replaced the original trade in goods. Many of the coastal communities began selling their neighbors, whom they had captured in wars and raids, to the Europeans in exchange for things such as guns, metal, jewelry, and liquor.

The slave trade had major social consequences for the Africans. Violence and intertribal warfare increased as the search for slaves intensified. The increased wealth accompanying the slave trade began to change social structures in the area. Leadership, which had been based on tradition and ritual, soon became based on wealth and economic power.

After more than 350 years of slave trading, the British decided that the slave trade was immoral and, in 1807, ordered it stopped. They began to force their newfound morality on the Nigerians. Many local leaders, however, continued to sell captives to illegal slave traders. This lead to confrontations with the British Navy, which took on the responsibility of enforcing the slave embargo. In 1851 the British attacked Lagos to try to stem the flow of slaves from the area. By 1861 the British government had annexed the city and established its first official colony in Nigeria.

Christian missionaries brought Western-style education to Nigeria as Christianity quickly spread throughout the south. The mission schools created an educated African elite who also sought increased contact with Europe and a Westernization of Nigeria.

In 1884, as European countries engaged in a race to consolidate their African territories, the British Army and local merchant militias set out to conquer the Africans who refused to recognize British rule. In 1914, after squelching the last of the indigenous opposition, Britain officially established the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria.

National Identity. The spread of overt colonial control led to the first and only time that the ethnic groups in modern Nigeria came together under a commonly felt sense of national identity. The Africans began to see themselves not as Hausas, Igbos, or Yorubas, but as Nigerians in a common struggle against their colonial rulers.

The nationalistic movement grew out of some of the modernization the British had instituted in Nigeria. The educated elite became some of the most outspoken proponents of an independent Nigeria. This elite had grown weary of the harsh racism it faced in business and administrative jobs within the government. Both the elite and the uneducated also began to grow fearful of the increasing loss of traditional culture. They began movements to promote Nigerian foods, names, dress, languages, and religions.

Increased urbanization and higher education brought large multiethnic groups together for the first time. As a result of this coming together, the Nigerians saw that they had more in common with each other than they had previously thought. This sparked unprecedented levels of interethnic teamwork. Nigerian political movements, media outlets, and trade unions whose purpose was the advancement of all Nigerians, not specific ethnic groups, became commonplace.

As calls for self-determination and a transfer of power into the hands of Nigerians grew, Britain began to divest more power into the regional governments. As a result of early colonial policies of divide and conquer, the regional governments tended to be drawn along ethnic lines. With this move to greater regional autonomy, the idea of a unified Nigeria became to crumble. Regionally and ethnically based political parties sprang up as ethnic groups began to wrangle for political influence.

Ethnic Relations. Nigeria gained full independence from Britain on 1 October 1960. Immediately following independence, vicious fighting between and among political parties created chaos within the fledgling democracy. On 15 January 1966 a group of army officers, most of whom were Igbo, staged a military coup, killing many of the government ministers from the western and northern tribes. Six months later, northern forces within the military staged a countercoup, killing most of the Igbo leaders. Anti-Igbo demonstrations broke out across the country, especially in the north. Hundreds of Igbos were killed, while the rest fled to the southeast.

On 26 May 1967 the Igbo-dominated southeast declared it had broken away from Nigeria to form the independent Republic of Biafra. This touched off a bloody civil war that lasted for three years. In 1970, on the brink of widespread famine resulting from a Nigeria-imposed blockade, Biafra was forced to surrender. Between five hundred thousand and two million Biafran civilians were killed during the civil war, most dying from starvation, not combat.

Following the war, the military rulers encouraged a national reconciliation, urging Nigerians to once again become a unified people. While this national reconciliation succeeded in reintegrating the Biafrans into Nigeria, it did not end the problems of ethnicity in the country. In the years that followed, Nigeria was continually threatened by disintegration due to ethnic fighting. These ethnic conflicts reached their height in the 1990s.

After decades of military rule, elections for a new civilian president were finally held on 12 June 1993. A wealthy Yoruba Muslim named Moshood Abiola won the elections, beating the leading Hausa candidate. Abiola won support not only from his own people but from many non-Yorubas as well, including many Hausas. This marked the first time since Nigeria's independence that Nigerians broke from ethnically based voting practices. Two weeks later, however, the military regime had the election results annulled and Abiola imprisoned. Many commanders in the Hausa-dominated military feared losing control to a southerner. They played on the nation's old ethnic distrusts, hoping that a divided nation would be easier to control. This soon created a new ethnic crisis. The next five years saw violent protests and mass migrations as ethnic groups again retreated to their traditional homelands.

The sudden death of Nigeria's last military dictator, General Suni Abacha, on 8 June 1998 opened the door for a transition back to civilian rule. Despite age-old ethnic rivalries, many Nigerians again crossed ethnic lines when they entered the voting booth. On 22 February 1999 Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba who ironically lacked support from his own people, won the presidential election. Obasanjo is seen as a nationalist who opposed ethnic divisions. However, some northern leaders believe he favors his own ethnic group.

Unfortunately, violent ethnic fighting in Nigeria continues. In October 2000, clashes between Hausas and supporters of the Odua People's Congress (OPC), a militant Yoruba group, led to the deaths of nearly a hundred people in Lagos. Many also blame the OPC for sparking riots in 1999, which killed more than a hundred others, most of them Hausas.

Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space

With the influx of oil revenue and foreigners, Nigerian cities have grown to resemble many Western urban centers. Lagos, for example, is a massive, overcrowded city filled with traffic jams, movie theaters, department stores, restaurants, and supermarkets. Because most Nigerian cities grew out of much older towns, very little urban planning was used as the cities expanded. Streets are laid out in a confusing and often mazelike fashion, adding to the chaos for pedestrians and traffic. The influx of people into urban areas has put a strain on many services. Power cuts and disruptions of telephone service are not uncommon.

Nigerian architecture is as diverse as its people. In rural areas, houses often are designed to accommodate the environment in which the people live. The Ijo live in the Niger Delta region, where dry land is very scarce. To compensate for this, many Ijo homes are built on stilts over creeks and swamps, with travel between them done by boat. The houses are made of wood and bamboo and topped with a roof made of fronds from raffia palms. The houses are very airy, to allow heat and the smoke from cooking fires to escape easily.

Igbo houses tend to be made of a bamboo frame held together with vines and mud and covered with banana leaves. They often blend into the surrounding forest and can be easily missed if you don't know where to look. Men and women traditionally live in separate houses.

Much of the architecture in the north is heavily influenced by Muslim culture. Homes are typically geometric, mud-walled structures, often with Muslim markings and decorations. The Hausa build large, walled compounds housing several smaller huts. The entryway into the compound is via a large hut built into the wall of the compound. This is the hut of the father or head male figure in the compound.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life. Western influences, especially in urban centers, have transformed Nigerian eating habits in many ways. City dwellers are familiar with the canned, frozen, and prepackaged foods found in most Western-style supermarkets. Foreign restaurants also are common in larger cities. However, supermarkets and restaurants often are too expensive for the average Nigerian; thus only the wealthy can afford to eat like Westerners. Most urban Nigerians seem to combine traditional cuisine with a little of Western-style foods and conveniences. Rural Nigerians tend to stick more with traditional foods and preparation techniques.

Food in Nigeria is traditionally eaten by hand. However, with the growing influence of Western culture, forks and spoons are becoming more common, even in remote villages. Whether people eat with their hand or a utensil, it is considered dirty and rude to eat using the left hand.

While the ingredients in traditional plates vary from region to region, most Nigerian cuisine tends to be based around a few staple foods accompanied by a stew. In the south, crops such as corn, yams, and sweet potatoes form the base of the diet. These vegetables are often pounded into a thick, sticky dough or paste. This is often served with a palm oilbased stew made with chicken, beef, goat, tomatoes, okra, onions, bitter leaves, or whatever meats and vegetables might be on hand. Fruits such as papaya, pineapples, coconuts, oranges, mangoes, and bananas also are very common in the tropical south.

In the north, grains such as millet, sorghum, and corn are boiled into a porridge-like dish that forms the basis of the diet. This is served with an oilbased soup usually flavored with onions, okra, and tomatoes. Sometimes meat is included, though among the Hausa it is often reserved for special occasions. Thanks to the Fulani cattle herders, fresh milk and yogurt are common even though there may not be refrigeration.

Alcohol is very popular in the south but less so in the north, where there is a heavy Islamic influence. Perhaps the most popular form of alcohol is palm wine, a tart alcoholic drink that comes from palm trees. Palm wine is often distilled further to make a strong, ginlike liquor. Nigerian breweries also produce several kinds of beer and liquor.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Food plays a central role in the rituals of virtually all ethnic groups in Nigeria. Special ceremonies would not be complete without participants sharing in a meal. Normally it is considered rude not to invite guests to share in a meal when they visit; it is even more so if the visitors were invited to attend a special event such as a marriage or a naming ceremony.

Since the 1960s, Nigeria's economy has been based on oil production. As a leading member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria has played a major role in influencing the price of oil on the world market. The oil-rich economy led to a major economic boom for Nigeria during the 1970s, transforming the poor African country into the thirtieth richest country in the world. However, falling oil prices, severe corruption, political instability, and economic mismanagement since then have left Nigeria no better off today than it was at independence.

Since the restoration of civilian rule in 1999, Nigeria has begun to make strides in economic reform. While hopes are high for a strong economic transformation, high unemployment, high inflation, and more than a third of the population living under the poverty line indicate it will be a long and difficult road.

Oil production has had some long-lasting ethnic consequences as well. While oil is Nigeria's largest industry in terms of output and revenue, oil reserves are found only in the Niger Delta region and along the coast. The government has long taken the oil revenues and dispersed them throughout the country. In this way, states not involved in oil production still get a share of the profits. This has led to claims that the minority ethnic groups living in the delta are being cheated out of revenue that is rightfully theirs because the larger ethnic groups dominate politics. Sometimes this has led to large-scale violence.

More than 50 percent of Nigeria's population works in the agriculture sector. Most farmers engage in subsistence farming, producing only what they eat themselves or sell locally. Very few agricultural products are produced for export.

Land Tenure and Property. While the federal government has the legal right to allocate land as it sees fit, land tenure remains largely a local issue. Most local governments follow traditional land tenure customs in their areas. For example, in Hausa society, title to land is not an absolute right. While communities and officials will honor long-standing hereditary rights to areas of land traditionally claimed by a given family, misused or abandoned land may be reapportioned for better use. Land also can be bought, sold, or rented. In the west, the Yoruban kings historically held all the land in trust, and therefore also had a say in how it was used for the good of the community. This has given local governments in modern times a freer hand in settling land disputes.

Traditionally, only men hold land, but as the wealth structure continues to change and develop in Nigeria, it would not be unheard of for a wealthy woman to purchase land for herself.

Major Industries. Aside from petroleum and petroleum-based products, most of the goods produced in Nigeria are consumed within Nigeria. For example, though the textile industry is very strong, nearly all the cloth produced in Nigeria goes to clothing the large Nigerian population.

Major agricultural products produced in Nigeria include cocoa, peanuts, palm oil, rice, millet, corn, cassava, yams, rubber, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, timber, and fish. Major commercial industries in Nigeria include coal, tin, textiles, footwear, fertilizer, printing, ceramics, and steel.

Trade. Oil and petroleum-based products made up 95 percent of Nigeria's exports in 1998. Cocoa and rubber are also produced for export. Major export partners include the United States, Spain, India, France, and Italy.

Nigeria is a large-scale importer, depending on other countries for things such as machinery, chemicals, transportation equipment, and manufactured goods. The country also must import large quantities of food and livestock. Major import partners include the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes. The highest tier of Nigerian society is made up of wealthy politicians, businessmen, and the educated elite. These people, however, make up only a tiny portion of the Nigerian population. Many Nigerians today suffer under great poverty. The lower classes tend have little chance of breaking from the vicious cycle of poverty. Poor education, lack of opportunities, ill health, corrupt politicians, and lack of even small amounts of wealth for investment all work to keep the lower classes in their place.

In some Nigerian ethnic groups there is also a form of caste system that treats certain members of society as pariahs. The criteria for determining who belongs to this lowest caste vary from area to area but can include being a member of a minority group, an inhabitant of a specific village, or a member of a specific family or clan. The Igbo call this lower-caste group Osu. Members of the community will often discourage personal, romantic, and business contact with any member of the Osu group, regardless of an individual's personal merits or characteristics. Because the Osu are designated as untouchable, they often lack political representation, access to basic educational or business opportunities, and general social interaction. This kind of caste system is also found among the Yoruba and the Ibibios.

Symbols of Social Stratification. Wealth is the main symbol of social stratification in modern Nigeria, especially in urban areas. While in the past many ethnic groups held hereditary titles and traditional lineage important, money has become the new marker of power and social status. Today the members of the wealthy elite are easily identifiable by their fancy clothing and hairstyles and by their expensive cars and Western-style homes. Those in the elite also tend to have a much better command of English, a reflection of the higher quality of education they have received.

Wealth also can be important in marking social boundaries in rural areas. In many ethnic groups, those who have accumulated enough wealth can buy themselves local titles. For example, among the Igbo, a man or a woman who has enough money may claim the title of Ozo. For women, one of the requirements to become an Ozo is to have enough ivory, coral, and other jewelry for the ceremony. The weight of the jewelry can often exceed fifty pounds. Both men and women who want to claim the title must also finance a feast for the entire community.

Political Life

Government. Nigeria is a republic, with the president acting as both head of state and head of government. Nigeria has had a long history of coups d'états, military rule, and dictatorship. However, this pattern was broken on 29 May 1999 as Nigeria's current president, Olusegun Obasanjo, took office following popular elections. Under the current constitution, presidential elections are to be held every four years, with no president serving more than two terms in office. The Nigerian legislature consists of two houses: a Senate and a House of Representatives. All legislators are elected to four-year terms. Nigeria's judicial branch is headed by a Supreme Court, whose members were appointed by the Provisional Ruling Council, which ruled Nigeria during its recent transition to democracy. All Nigerians over age eighteen are eligible to vote.

Leadership and Political Officials. A wealthy political elite dominates political life in Nigeria. The relationship between the political elite and ordinary Nigerians is not unlike that between nobles and commoners. Nigerian leaders, whether as members of a military regime or one of Nigeria's short-lived civilian governments, have a history of doing whatever it takes to stay in power and to hold on to the wealth that this power has given them.

Rural Nigerians tend to accept this noble-peasant system of politics. Low levels of education and literacy mean that many people in rural areas are not fully aware of the political process or how to affect it. Their relative isolation from the rest of the country means that many do not even think of politics. There is a common feeling in many rural areas that the average person cannot affect the politics of the country, so there is no reason to try.

Urban Nigerians tend to be much more vocal in their support of or opposition to their leaders. Urban problems of housing, unemployment, health care, sanitation, and traffic tend to mobilize people into political action and public displays of dissatisfaction.

Political parties were outlawed under the Abacha regime, and only came back into being after his death. As of the 1999 presidential elections, there were three main political parties in Nigeria: the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the All Peoples Party (APP), and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The PDP is the party of President Obasanjo. It grew out of support for opposition leaders who were imprisoned by the military government in the early 1990s. The PDP is widely believed to have received heavy financial assistance from the military during the 1999 elections. The APP is led by politicians who had close ties to the Abacha regime. The AD is a party led by followers of the late Moshood Abiola, the Yoruba politician who won the general election in 1993, only to be sent to prison by the military regime.

Social Problems and Control. Perhaps Nigeria's greatest social problem is the internal violence plaguing the nation. Interethnic fighting throughout the country, religious rioting between Muslims and non-Muslims over the creation of Shari'a law (strict Islamic law) in the northern states, and political confrontations between ethnic minorities and backers of oil companies often spark bloody confrontations that can last days or even months. When violence of this type breaks out, national and state police try to control it. However, the police themselves are often accused of some of the worst violence. In some instances, curfews and martial law have been imposed in specific areas to try to stem outbreaks of unrest.

Poverty and lack of opportunity for many young people, especially in urban areas, have led to major crime. Lagos is considered one of the most dangerous cities in West Africa due to its incredibly high crime rate. The police are charged with controlling crime, but their lack of success often leads to vigilante justice.

In some rural areas there are some more traditional ways of addressing social problems. In many ethnic groups, such as the Igbo and the Yoruba, men are organized into secret societies. Initiated members of these societies often dress in masks and palm leaves to masquerade as the physical embodiment of traditional spirits to help maintain social order. Through ritual dance, these men will give warnings about problems with an individual's or community's morality in a given situation. Because belief in witchcraft and evil spirits is high throughout Nigeria, this kind of public accusation can instill fear in people and cause them to mend their ways. Members of secret societies also can act as judges or intermediaries in disputes.

Military Activity. Nigeria's military consists of an army, a navy, an air force, and a police force. The minimum age for military service is eighteen.

The Nigerian military is the largest and best-equipped military in West Africa. As a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Nigeria is the major contributor to the organization's military branch, known as ECOMOG. Nigerian troops made up the vast majority of the ECOMOG forces deployed to restore peace following civil wars in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone. Public dissatisfaction with Nigeria's participation in the Sierra Leonean crisis was extremely high due to high casualty rates among the Nigerian soldiers. Nigeria pledged to pull out of Sierra Leone in 1999, prompting the United Nations to send in peacekeepers in an attempt stem the violence. While the foreign forces in Sierra Leone are now under the mandate of the United Nations, Nigerian troops still make up the majority of the peacekeepers.

Nigeria has a long-running border dispute with Cameroon over the mineral-rich Bakasi Peninsula, and the two nations have engaged in a series of cross-boarder skirmishes. Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad also have a long-running border dispute over territory in the Lake Chad region, which also has led to some fighting across the borders.

Social Welfare and Change Programs

Severe poverty, human rights violations, and corruption are some of the major social ills that have plagued Nigeria for decades. Because Nigeria is in the midst of major political change, however, there is great hope for social reform in the country.

President Obasanjo's administration has been focusing much of its efforts on changing the world's image of Nigeria. Many foreign companies have been reluctant to invest in Nigeria for fear of political instability. Obasanjo hopes that if Nigeria can project the image of a stable nation, he can coax foreign investors to come to Nigeria and help bolster the country's failing economy. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are also working with Nigeria to develop economic policies that will revitalize the nation's economy.

According to Amnesty International's 2000 report, Nigeria's new government continues to make strides in improving human rights throughout the country, most notably in the release of political prisoners. However, the detention of journalists critical of the military and reports of police brutality continue to be problems. Foreign governments and watchdog organizations continue to press the Nigerian government for further human rights reforms.

Gender Roles and Statuses

Division of Labor by Gender. In general, labor is divided in Nigerian society along gender lines. Very few women are active in the political and professional arenas. In urban areas, increasing numbers of women are becoming involved in the professional workforce, but they are greatly outnumbered by their male counterparts. Women who do manage to gain professional employment rarely make it into the higher levels of management.

However, women in Nigeria still play significant roles in the economy, especially in rural areas. Women are often expected to earn significant portions of the family income. As a rule, men have little obligation to provide for their wives or children. Therefore women have traditionally had to farm or sell homemade products in the local market to ensure that they could feed and clothe their children. The division of labor along gender lines even exists within industries. For example, the kinds of crops that women cultivate differ from those that men cultivate. In Igbo society, yams are seen as men's crops, while beans and cassava are seen as women's crops.

The Relative Status of Women and Men. Modern Nigeria is a patriarchal society. Men are dominant over women in virtually all areas. While Nigeria is a signatory to the international Convention on Equality for Women, it means little to the average Nigerian woman. Women still have fewer legal rights than men. According to Nigeria's Penal Code, men have the right to beat their wives as long as they do not cause permanent physical injury. Wives are often seen as little more than possessions and are subject to the rule of their husbands.

However, women can exercise influence in some areas. For example, in most ethnic groups, mothers and sisters have great say in the lives of their sons and brothers, respectively. The blood relationship allows these women certain leeway and influence that a wife does not have.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage. There are three types of marriage in Nigeria today: religious marriage, civil marriage, and traditional marriage. A Nigerian couple may decide to take part in one or all of these marriages. Religious marriages, usually Christian or Muslim, are conducted according to the norms of the respective religious teachings and take place in a church or a mosque. Christian males are allowed only one wife, while Muslim men can take up to four wives. Civil official weddings take place in a government registry office. Men are allowed only one wife under a civil wedding, regardless of religion. Traditional marriages usually are held at the wife's house and are performed according to the customs of the ethnic group involved. Most ethnic groups traditionally allow more than one wife.

Depending on whom you ask, polygamy has both advantages and disadvantages in Nigerian society. Some Nigerians see polygamy as a divisive force in the family, often pitting one wife against another. Others see polygamy as a unifying factor, creating a built-in support system that allows wives to work as a team.

While Western ways of courtship and marriage are not unheard of, the power of traditional values and the strong influence of the family mean that traditional ways are usually followed, even in the cities and among the elite. According to old customs, women did not have much choice of whom they married, though the numbers of arranged marriages are declining. It is also not uncommon for women to marry in their teens, often to a much older man. In instances where there are already one or more wives, it is the first wife's responsibility to look after the newest wife and help her integrate into the family.

Many Nigerian ethnic groups follow the practice of offering a bride price for an intended wife. Unlike a dowry, in which the woman would bring something of material value to the marriage, a bride price is some form of compensation the husband must pay before he can marry a wife. A bride price can take the form of money, cattle, wine, or other valuable goods paid to the woman's family, but it also can take a more subtle form. Men might contribute money to the education of an intended wife or help to establish her in a small-scale business or agricultural endeavor. This form of bride price is often incorporated as part of the wooing process. While women who leave their husbands will be welcomed back into their families, they often need a justification for breaking the marriage. If the husband is seen as having treated his wife well, he can expect to have the bride price repaid.

Though customs vary from group to group, traditional weddings are often full of dancing and lively music. There is also lots of excitement and cultural displays. For example, the Yoruba have a practice in which the bride and two or three other women come out covered from head to toe in a white shroud. It is the groom's job to identify his wife from among the shrouded women to show how well he knows his wife.

Divorce is quite common in Nigeria. Marriage is more of a social contract made to ensure the continuation of family lines rather than a union based on love and emotional connections. It is not uncommon for a husband and wife to live in separate homes and to be extremely independent of one another. In most ethnic groups, either the man or the woman can end the marriage. If the woman leaves her husband, she will often be taken as a second or third wife of another man. If this is the case, the new husband is responsible for repaying the bride price to the former husband. Children of a divorced woman are normally accepted into the new family as well, without any problems.

Domestic Unit. The majority of Nigerian families are very large by Western standards. Many Nigerian men take more than one wife. In some ethnic groups, the greater the number of children, the greater a man's standing in the eyes of his peers. Family units of ten or more are not uncommon.

In a polygamous family, each wife is responsible for feeding and caring for her own children, though the wives often help each other when needed. The wives also will take turns feeding their husband so that the cost of his food is spread equally between or among the wives. Husbands are the authority figures in the household, and many are not used to their ideas or wishes being challenged.

In most Nigerian cultures, the father has his crops to tend to, while his wives will have their own jobs, whether they be tending the family garden, processing palm oil, or selling vegetables in the local market. Children may attend school. When they return home, the older boys will help their father with his work, while the girls and younger boys will go to their mothers.

Inheritance. For many Nigerian ethnic groups, such as the Hausa and the Igbo, inheritance is basically a male affair. Though women have a legal right to inheritance in Nigeria, they often receive nothing. This is a reflection of the forced economic independence many women live under. While their husbands are alive, wives are often responsible for providing for themselves and their children. Little changes economically after the death of the husband. Property and wealth are usually passed on to sons, if they are old enough, or to other male relatives, such as brothers or uncles.

For the Fulani, if a man dies, his brother inherits his property and his wife. The wife usually returns to live with her family, but she may move in with her husband's brother and become his wife.

Kin Groups. While men dominate Igbo society, women play an important role in kinship. All Igbos, men and women, have close ties to their mother's clan, which usually lives in a different village. When an Igbo dies, the body is usually sent back to his mother's village to be buried with his mother's kin. If an Igbo is disgraced or cast out of his community, his mother's kin will often take him in.

For the Hausa, however, there is not much of a sense of wide-ranging kinship. Hausa society is based on the nuclear family. There is a sense of a larger extended family, including married siblings and their families, but there is little kinship beyond that. However, the idea of blood being thicker than water is very strong in Hausa society. For this reason, many Hausas will try to stretch familial relationships to the broader idea of clan or tribe to diffuse tensions between or among neighbors.

Socialization

Infant Care. Newborns in Nigerian societies are regarded with pride. They represent a community's and a family's future and often are the main reason for many marriages.

Throughout Nigeria, the bond between mother and child is very strong. During the first few years of a child's life, the mother is never far away. Nigerian women place great importance on breast-feeding and the bond that it creates between mother and child. Children are often not weaned off their mother's milk until they are toddlers.

Children who are too young to walk or get around on their own are carried on their mother's backs, secured by a broad cloth that is tied around the baby and fastened at the mother's breasts. Women will often carry their children on their backs while they perform their daily chores or work in the fields.

Child Rearing and Education. When children reach the age of about four or five, they often are expected to start performing a share of the household duties. As the children get older, their responsibilities grow. Young men are expected to help their fathers in the fields or tend the livestock. Young women help with the cooking, fetch water, or do laundry. These tasks help the children learn how to become productive members of their family and community. As children, many Nigerians learn that laziness is not acceptable; everyone is expected to contribute.

While children in most Nigerian societies have responsibilities, they also are allowed enough leeway to be children. Youngsters playing with homemade wooden dolls and trucks, or groups of boys playing soccer are common sights in any Nigerian village.

All Nigerian children are supposed to have access to a local elementary school. While the government aims to provide universal education for both boys and girls, the number of girls in class is usually much lower than the number of boys. Sending every child in a family to school can often put a lot of strain on a family. The family will lose the child's help around the house during school hours and will have to pay for uniforms and supplies. If parents are forced to send one child to school over another, many will choose to educate boys before girls.

Higher Education. Historically, Nigerians have been very interested in higher education. The lack of universities providing quality education equal to that in Britain was a major component of the social reforms that led to Nigeria's independence. Today there are forty-three universities in Nigeria. The majority of these are government-run, but the government has recently approved the creation of three private universities.

While Nigeria's system of higher education is the largest in Africa, the demand for higher education far exceeds the capacity of the facilities. There simply are not enough institutions to accommodate the demand. In 1998 only thirty-five thousand students were accepted to Nigerian universities out of a pool of more than four hundred thousand applicants.

Nigeria also has 125 technical training schools. The majority of these focus on polytechnic and agricultural training, with a few specializing in areas such as petroleum sciences and health.

Age is greatly respected in Nigeria. In an area where the average life expectancy is not very high, those who live into their senior years are seen as having earned special rights of respect and admiration. This is true of both men and women.

Socially, greetings are of the utmost importance. A handshake and a long list of well wishes for a counterpart's family and good health are expected when meeting someone. This is often true even if you have seen that person a short time earlier. Whether you are talking to a bank teller or visiting a friend, it is considered rude not to engage in a proper greeting before getting down to business.

Shaking hands, eating, or passing things with the left hand are unacceptable. The left hand is reserved for personal toiletries and is considered dirty.

Religious Beliefs. It is estimated that 50 percent of Nigerians are Muslim, 40 percent are Christian, and that the remaining 10 percent practice various indigenous religions.

While Muslims can be found in all parts of Nigeria, their strongest footholds are among the Hausa and the Yoruba. Islam in Nigeria is similar to Islam throughout the world. It is based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, which are outlined in the Qur'an.

Christianity is most prevalent in the south of Nigeria. The vast majority of Igbo are Christians, as are many Yorubas. The most popular forms of Christianity in Nigeria include Anglican, Presbyterian, American Southern Baptist, and Methodist. Also, there are large pockets of Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Conflict with the way some missionaries administered the churches during colonial times also created several breakaway African-Christian churches. Most of these adhere to the doctrines of Western churches but have introduced African music and tradition to their Masses. Some have even eased Christian restrictions on polygamy.

Relations between Christians and Muslims are tense in many areas. Since late 1999, numerous clashes between the two have led to thousands of deaths. The northern city of Kaduna has been the flash point for many of these riots, as local leaders discussed whether to institute Shari'a law in the region. Demonstrations by Christians against the idea soon led to violent confrontations with Muslims. The debate over Shari'a law and the violence accompanying it continue in many of the northern states.

While Islam and Christianity are the dominant religions in Nigeria, neither is completely free of influence from indigenous religions. Most people who consider themselves good Muslims or good Christians often also follow local religious practices. This makes up for perceived shortcomings in their religion. Most indigenous religions are based on a form of ancestor worship in which family members who have passed into the spirit world can influence things in the world of the living. This mixing of traditional ways with Islam has led to groups such as the Bori cult, who use spirit possession as a way to understand why people are suffering in this life. The mixing of traditional ways with Christianity has led to the development of the Aladura Church. Aladura priests follow basic Christian doctrine but also use prophecy, healing, and charms to ward off witchcraft.

Many Nigerians follow the teachings of purely indigenous religions. Most of these religions share the idea that one supreme god created the earth and its people, but has left people to decide their own paths in life. Followers of the traditional Yoruban religion believe that hundreds of spirits or minor gods have taken the place of the supreme god in influencing the daily lives of individuals. Many Yoruban slaves who were taken to the Caribbean and the Americas brought this religion with them. There it was used as the basis of Santeria and voodoo.

Because the vast majority of Igbos converted to Christianity during colonialism, few practice the traditional Igbo religion, which is based on hundreds of gods, not a single creator.

Religious Practitioners. According to Muslim and Christian traditions, officials in these religions tend to be male. For most indigenous religions, priests and priestesses are common. Traditional priests and priestesses get their power and influence from their ability to be possessed by their god or by their ability to tell the future or to heal. In the Igbo religion men serve as priests to Igbo goddesses, and women serve as priestesses to Igbo gods. While both men and women can rank high in the Yoruban religion, women usually are among the most respected of traditional priests.

Rituals and Holy Places. Because many of the indigenous religions are based on various spirits or minor gods, each with influence over a specific area of nature, many of the traditional rituals are based on paying homage to these gods and spirits. Likewise, the area of control for a spirit also marks the places that are holy to that spirit. For example, a tribe's water spirit may have a specific pond or river designated as its holy place. The Kalabari, Okrika, and Ikwerre tribes of the Niger Delta region all have festivals in honor of water spirits sacred to their peoples. The Yoruba hold a twenty-day Shango festival each year to honor their god of thunder. Many Igbo consider it bad luck to eat yams from the new harvest until after the annual Yam Festival, a harvest celebration held in honor of the Igbo earth goddess Ani.

Death and the Afterlife. Christian and Muslim Nigerians believe that following death, a person's soul is released and judged by God before hopefully going on to Heaven. Many traditional religions, especially those of the eastern tribes, believe in reincarnation. In these tribes, people believe that the dead will come back as a member of his or her mother's or sister's family. Many in-depth ceremonies are necessary to prepare the body before burial. For example, if the person was inflicted with some physical disability, steps would be taken to prevent it from being passed on to him in the next life. An infertile woman may have her abdomen cut open before burial or a blind man may have a salve made from special leaves placed over his eyes.

Regardless of religion, Nigerians bury their dead. This is customary among Christians and Muslims, but it also is based on traditional beliefs that the body should be returned to the earth that sustained it during life.

Muslims are buried so that their heads face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. For others, it is customary to bury a man with his head turned toward the east, so he can see the rising sun. A woman is buried facing west, so she will know when the sun sets and when it is time to prepare dinner for her husband in the next life. People also cover the body with black earth during burial because many believe that red earth will result in skin blemishes in the next life.

The ethnic groups in eastern Nigeria believe that the more music and dancing at a funeral, the better that person's chances of a successful afterlife. The size of funerals depends on the social standing of the deceased. Men are expected to set aside money that will be used to ensure they have a properly elaborate funeral. Women, children, and adolescents tend to have much less elaborate funerals.

Medicine and Health Care

Nigerians, like people in many developing countries, suffer from widespread disease and a poor health care system. Malaria, HIV/AIDS, parasitic infections, and childhood diseases are rampant throughout the country. Widespread poverty also contributes to the poor level of health care, as many people shy away from modern treatments that are too expensive. Corruption at all levels of government makes it difficult for health care funding to trickle down to the average Nigerian. Underfunding and neglect have left many clinics and hospitals in poor physical condition and without modern equipment. Pharmacies, both state-run and private, regularly run out of medicines. Patients looking for cheaper remedies often turn to black-market vendors, who often sell expired or counterfeit drugs. There also is a shortage of qualified medical personnel to adequately treat the whole population.

In 2000, the estimated life expectancy of Nigerian men and women was fifty-one years. The estimated infant mortality rate was over 7 percent, or about seventy-four infant deaths for every thousand live births.

AIDS has extracted a devastating toll on Nigeria. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS estimated that 2.7 million Nigerian adults were living with AIDS or HIV in 1999. The vast majority of Nigerians who are HIV-positive do not know it. Some 1.7 million Nigerians had already died of the disease by the end of 1999. The primary mode of HIV transmission in Nigeria is through heterosexual intercourse.

Both Western and traditional forms of medicine are popular in Nigeria. Traditional medicine, also known as juju, is common at the rural level. Practitioners of juju use a variety of plants and herbs in their cures. Most families also have their own secret remedies for minor health problems.

Many rural people do not trust Western-style medicine, preferring instead to use traditional ways. In many instances the traditional medicine is very effective and produces fewer side effects than modern drugs. Most of modern medicine's prescription drugs grew out of traditional herbal remedies. However, there are conditions in which traditional medicine can do more harm than good. Sometimes this leads to conflict between the government-sponsored health care system and traditional ways. Some organizations are now looking at ways to combine the two in an attempt to coax people back into health centers.

The federal government is responsible for the training of health care workers and running nationwide health campaigns such as those aimed at fighting AIDS, Guinea worm infection, river blindness, and leprosy.

Secular Celebrations

Nigeria observes three secular national holidays and several officially recognized Muslim and Christian holidays when government, commerce, and banks are closed. The secular holidays are New Year's Day (1 January), Workers' Day (1 May), and National Day (1 October). The Christian holidays are Christmas (25 December), Good Friday, and Easter Monday. The Muslim holidays are Eid al-Fitr (the last day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting), Tabaski, and Eid al-Moulid. Aside from Christmas, the religious holidays fall on different days each year.

The Arts and Humanities

Support for the Arts. Nigerian art traditionally served a social or religious purpose and did not exist for the sake of art per se. For example, dance was used to teach or to fulfill some ritualistic goal. Sculpture was used in blessings, in healing rituals, or to ward off bad luck. With increasing modernization, however, Nigerian art is becoming less oriented to a particular purpose. In some cases, Nigerians have abandoned whole forms of art because they no longer served a purpose. For example, the elaborate tombstones once widely produced by the Ibibio are becoming increasingly rare as Western-style cemeteries are replacing traditional burial grounds.

Literature. Nigeria has a long and incredibly rich literary history. Nigerians are traditionally storytellers. Much of precolonial history in Nigeria is the result of stories handed down from generation to generation. With colonization and the introduction of reading, writing, and the English language, Nigerian storytellers soon began sharing their talents with a worldwide audience. Perhaps Nigeria's most famous writer is Wole Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel Prize for literature. His most famous works include A Dance of the Forests, The Swamp Dwellers, and The Lion and the Jewel. Other famous Nigerian authors include Chinua Achebe, whose Things Fall Apart is a favorite among Western schools as an example of the problems inflicted on African societies during colonization, and Ben Okri, whose novel The Famished Road won Britain's 1991 Booker Prize.

Graphic Arts. Nigeria is famous for its sculpture. The bronzework of the ancient cities of Ife and Benin can be found in museums all over the world. These areas in southern Nigeria still produce large amounts of bronze castings. Woodcarvings and terra-cotta sculptures also are popular.

Nigerians are expert dyers, weavers, and tailors. They produce massive quantities of beautiful, rich, and colorful textiles. However, the majority of these are sold primarily for everyday wear and not as examples of art.

Performance Arts. Dance and music are perhaps the two most vibrant forms of Nigerian art. Nigerian music is dependent on strong rhythms supplied by countless drums and percussion instruments. Highlife is a type of music heavily influenced by Western culture. It sounds like an Africanized version of American big band or ballroom music. Afro-beat combines African rhythms and melodies with jazz and soul. One of Nigeria's best-known Afro-beat artists, Fela Kuti, was heavily influenced by American artists such as James Brown. Palm wine music gets its name from the palm wine saloons where it is traditionally heard. Its fast-paced, frenzied rhythms reflect the rambunctious nature of many palm wine bars.

Perhaps Nigeria's most popular form of music is juju, which uses traditional drums and percussion instruments to back up vocals and complicated guitar work. Popular juju artists include King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, and Shina Peters.

The State of the Physical and Social Sciences

While Nigeria's system of higher education is better than most in Africa, many of its best and brightest students go to universities in the United States or Europe in search of better facilities and academic support. These students often stay abroad, where there are more opportunities to pursue their talents and to benefit economically. This loss of sharp and influential minds has left the physical and social sciences in a poorer state than they need be. The few sciences that are thriving in Nigeria, such as geology and petroleum sciences, are often headed by non-Nigerians, brought in by foreign companies that have contracts to exploit Nigeria's natural resources.

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Falola, Toyin, and Adebayo, Akanmu. Culture, Politics, and Money Among the Yoruba, 2000.

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—T IM C URRY

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• Nigerian Culture, Customs, and Traditions

Nigeria is a multiethnic country in Northern Africa . With nearly 200 million inhabitants, it also happens to be one of the world's largest countries by population . The culture of the country is diverse and tends to differ from north to south. Below are some of the most notable things about Nigerian culture.

Nigeria’s culture is made up of several ethnic groups that speak 527 different languages . The number of ethnic groups and dialects stand at more than 1,150. Some of the most prominent ethnic groups include the likes of the Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, and Ijaw. Minority ethnic groups live throughout the nation although higher concentrations of these groups live in the northern and the middle regions of Nigeria.

Nigeria Traditions

Nigerian traditions are wide and vary in the different cultures. For example, it is typical for Nigerians to have three weddings, unless they are getting married to foreigners. The first wedding is traditional, the second one being in a court, while the third is in the church or the mosque. The rationale behind these weddings is that the union needs to be recognized by religion, the law, and by tradition. Other traditions include the mother-in-law helping the daughter-in-law after giving birth and younger men going for apprenticeships with older and wealthier men.

Nigerian Food

Nigerian food is mostly made up of meals that are high in carbohydrates, such as cassavas, rice, maize, yams, and plenty of vegetables. There are many ways that these meals are prepared. For example, the cassavas can be ground up and the flour used to make a delicious and inexpensive porridge. The yams can be mashed or fried in oil. Meat is another delicacy that is prepared into something known as suya (a form of meat resembling barbecue meat) and wild meat (from giraffes and antelopes). Most of the foods are spicy, especially in the west and the south. Other forms of traditional food include fufu, eba, okra, egusi, and ogbono. Drinks include traditional brews like palm wine.

Nigerian Clothing

Nigeria itself is home to several textile industries that go towards clothing the Nigerian people. Fashion is diverse and varies depending on the ethnic groups, culture, and religion. In recent time, the styles have evolved to more contemporary designs. Traditionally, cultures such as the Yoruba used to wear clothing such as gele (a cloth wrapped around the head by women), afbada (a robe for formal functions), and other forms of attire. Other cultures, such as the Igbo used to wear clothes only for modesty in past times, which is unlike other cultures where clothing has always been a symbol of status.

Family Life

Families are a crucial aspect of Nigerian society and are typically larger than in the west. The larger number of families is because a higher number of children improves the social standing of a man. For this reason, newborns are regarded with joy and pride as they are the future. In some of Nigeria's northern states, polygamy is legal and men may marry several wives. However, none of the states in southern Nigeria allow this practice.

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25 Popular Culture, Literature, and the Arts in Nigeria

Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

• Published: 18 March 2022
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Culture, either as a living experience or a signifier, is an essential tool for understanding human society through linguistic communication and mythical representations and performances. Leaning on the theory of archetypes and the notion of codes, among other semiotic concepts, this chapter sets out to interrogate the dynamics of pop culture in Nigeria from a historical perspective. It defines how this culture shapes the form and aesthetics of the country’s ever-evolving modern space through its TV shows, Nollywood movies, music, and literature. Building its analysis on well-founded concepts, ideas, and historical facts, the chapter concludes that while the Nigerian culture industry will continue the growth we have seen in the last decades in the face of digital innovations, the sociopolitical and economic implications that result might prove complicated and messy.

Introduction

It is hard to tell which aspect is more dominant in the human species: political nature or social being. Nevertheless, few would disagree that humans are, by any measure, political beings whose social nature navigates, constructs, and gives this form living expression ( Thiong’o 1981 ; Amin 1989 ; Ndimele 2016 ; Imbua et al. 2012 ; Barber 1991 ). These two are in constant communication with the social and physical environment, which informs individuals’ economic position and value. Within this loop, civilization is baked and incubated ( Falola 2001 ). One can then describe culture, simply, as human inventions in response to their environment. This explains why culture is said to be fluid, transient, and mutable ( Urban 2001 ), as events and the passage of time dictate what the environment requests from its inhabitants. We see African cultures transforming from their primordial form since the seventh-century Arab contact, continuing with the eventual nineteenth-century colonization made possible by the fifteenth-century maritime breakthrough in Europe ( Falola and Heaton 2008 ). This Arab contact impacted their environment through the new trading opportunities and relations by shifting their social forms, as they gravitated towards the East, while also providing the people of Africa a model of enlightenment and civilization and—more importantly—a vehicle for social mobility.

It is no coincidence that this occurred as Islam gained prominence, changing practices in trade, politics, socialization, and the economy. The Imams and others knowledgeable about Islam quickly became what one could refer to as archetypal figures, as described by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in his archetype theory ( Danesi 2019 ). Following Jung—as done by many other scholars—these figures are embodiments of a particular narrative, sources of knowledge and inspiration, as well as the window for others to read meanings and comprehend signs, symbols, performances, and lived experiences. Humans’ irresistible longing to create an archetype figure among themselves forms the basis for constructing and sustaining culture, norms, and traditions ( Mosweunyane 2013 ). 1 Therefore, the extent to which humans’ political and social nature functions and develops reveals how much they have interacted with these archetype figures. By the late 1400s, Europeans set foot on Africa’s shores and began to impact its environment tremendously, even more so than the Arabs. Though the peoples’ symbols and interpretations of wealth were already beginning to change at this time, owing to their shifting understanding of objects through their usage and depiction, the late eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution in Western Europe exacerbated this transformation significantly.

This process can be seen through the theoretical lens of Barthes’ notion of “coding,” instrumental not only in understanding pop culture, as will be shown anon, but the culture in general. As described in his work, performances, objects, and signs can be interpreted through two discursive streams: the plain level, which is not coded and consequently expresses noncoded messages, and the more profound level, which consider a symbolic presence and interpretation in messages through the thoughtful process of reading cultural and ideological meanings into them ( Barthes 1991 ). Applying this, the mutation of African cultures along the path of the East and the West through contact and trading relations was consequent upon two things: the plain and symbolic interpretation of their environment vis-à-vis the objects, performances, and signs that emerged with these periods and the creation and acts of the archetype figure(s) through whom these signifiers were animated.

If earlier civilizations molded their cultures within their enclaves through physical contact with centripetal and centrifugal agents of change, the post-industrial revolutionary years saw cultures no longer constructed and reconstructed in this way, but rather through the medium of technology communicating events, practices, performances, language, symbols, signs, lifestyles, arts, science, texts, possibilities and impossibilities, meanings, trends, and more from one distant land to another ( Waldfogel 2018 ). Fundamentally, the invention of audio and audiovisual devices such as the radio, television, and printing machines that gave rise to magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and other forms of literature would come to immeasurably democratize cultural forms and expressions. With these media of expression, individual thoughts and expressions matter significantly, as they can invent social changes and defile the so-called high culture. The expressions, social forms, and practices of even a remote area can have a magnetic appeal elsewhere, thereby altering the receiving culture without a conscious assimilation process, as in the so-called high culture.

Popular culture, even when it shares an ambiguous border with the broader generic culture, should then be seen as the culture that evolves among the ordinary people, often challenging the status quo and traditions as it pushes the epistemic value of a people to new limits usually defined only by its commerciality ( Storey 2018 ). This brings the culture to the state of temporality, more susceptible to change than the organic ones. Still, like the organic culture, popular culture also has its concrete elements that have survived over time and are expected to last for centuries to come; these are forms, practices, and interpretations that can be referred to as the nucleus, or rather the ideology, of popular culture productions and reproductions. Among these are the images of a woman, love, money, luxury, pleasure, socialization, and social relations and forms that have moved away from their conventional connotations and meanings through their popular cultural expression. In understanding pop culture, two things are clearly in question: the cultural evolution of a society in a modern industrial world, driven by capitalism and globalization, and the social forces driving these mechanisms. In the following discussion, attempts will be made to analyze these within the Nigerian experience.

Popular Culture and the Making of Modern Nigeria

Pop culture is a form of non-systemic opposition or resistance against established sociocultural rules and practices in society. Its perpetual lean toward this liberal, progressive, and futuristic inclination often brings with it a creative rascality and a distress signal from cultural gatekeepers in every society. Implicitly, pop culture derives its contents—texts, images, performances, and living experiences—primarily through futuristic adaption rather than cultural preservation, serving as an expression of cultural freedom. Being the vanguard of this cultural evolution via the control and use of its media and technological power, the influence of American culture and drive cannot be taken lightly in the pop culture discourse. Suppose there is anything that distinguishes American civilization from that of Western Europe. In that case, it is the latter’s conservative nature and the seemingly progressive leaning of the former, which has facilitated the globalization process and typified the emergence of the United States’ domination of the world stage and politics since the last days of the early twentieth century. As a non-traditional expression of art, media, and meaning-making, the term “pop culture” came to popularity with the Pop Art Movement emerging in the 1940s in America, but the term had been around since the mid-1800s, and the phenomenon it represents became a real force of social change starting in the 1920s with the invention of jazz music, new fashion subcultures such as flappers and flaming youths, dance crazes, popular movies, musicals, radio broadcasts, pulp fiction magazines, and comic books, among other peculiar performative and literary art expressions developing in the United States. In Danesi’s (2020) words: all of this “became characteristic staples of an emerging new open cultural paradigm that stood in stark contrast to the closed puritanical culture that had shaped American society since its colonial origins. The advent of such a ‘profane’ culture was seen as dangerous to society’s moral basis and subversive to Americanism, as it was understood in that era” ( Danesi 2020 , 150–151).

Popular culture comes to life through advertisements, imagery, and performances that unintentionally publicize specific behavioral patterns, social forms, and forms of consciousness; if the newspapers and magazines advertise or display it—a signifier which could be anything, such as a product, object, person, style—if the movies and TV shows create a narrative around it and the radio programs further amplify it, they all combine to make it familiar, popular, and trending across social groups, classes, and other social stratifications ( Adejunmobi 2002 ). The creation of archetypal figures by and through these channels and their symbolic coding of the performances, images, signs, objects, and all that it conveys, are essential in building a pop culture at any material time. This brings us to the trajectory of this culture in Nigeria, expanding on the introduction. The continuous relationship between Nigeria—as with other modern African states—and the Western imperial powers accumulated into the latter’s colonial domination over the former. By this time, the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe had lessened the need for viable black labor power for the cheap production of American goods, then under the control of various Western European capitals. This resulted in this population of slaves being sent back to their homelands, though it was cloaked in the banner of humanitarianism. As many scholars have rightly noted, Blacks’ role cannot be overemphasized in the making of pop culture.

Through the invention of rap, jazz, and various other forms of art and musical genres, Blacks in the repressive American society revolted against the system and began to carve a new space for themselves in the intensely segregated country. Their contributions did not simply emerge in the 1920s; it had been the vehicular drive behind the Maroon Revolt and other known and unknown forms of Black resistance against white domination. The difference in this period was that their form of resistance during the 1920s resonated with the larger American community, with a further impact on Europe, especially among the youths who were already tired of their societies’ conservative reproduction ( Storey 2018 ). The Americanization of the United States, in which Blacks played a leading role, has come to be the template for pop culture worldwide, from music to fashion, ideology to performance, and all the other products of its creativity. Consequently, its manifestation in Nigeria has its immediate root in society’s multifaceted transformation from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. With the return of the freed slaves, followed by the arrival of Christian missionaries and the British government’s colonial conquest of the area known today as Nigeria, the ground was set for the consolidation of past and present developments into an immeasurable cultural transformation of the colony. The Christian missionaries and returnee ex-slaves played major roles in transforming society through the acceptance and spread of Western education, and the exposure that came with this experience birthed a high culture from where the nuances of popular culture came into being in Nigeria.

Many of these returnees could not afford to lose touch with the Americas’ evolving culture and already were shaping the taste of society themselves. From hairstyles to lifestyles, dressing to expression, ideology to symbolism, music to art performance, the struggle between the modern and traditional was heavily weighted towards the former. By the time the Hope Waddel Press was set up in Calabar in 1846, the Reverend Henry Townsend’s Mission Printing Press in 1856, and the publication of the first Nigerian newspaper, Iwe Iroyin , a few years after in Abeokuta, the race towards modernity had begun in earnest in Nigeria, but not as intensively as would be seen in the subsequent years ( Afolabi 2015 ). The Nigerian printing press’s birth is noteworthy in the history of the Nigerian media and publishing industry; the sources from where pop culture is textualized and distributed. Equally important is that neither Waddel’s nor Townsend’s press would have existed at the time they did without local support, gaining tremendously from that period’s returnees. 2

While popular culture was cultivated and evolved to force a seismic shift in the social formation and psyche of the people of America as a form of resistance against the Victorian-Puritanical inherited traditions imposed by its colonial legacies, Nigeria’s was premised on relinquishing what was traditional (indigenous) for the modern (Western). But because of its nature as something popular and trending, these Western values—which remained exotic, requiring specific skills and knowledge to grasp and belong (high culture)—were localized, adulterated to produce Nigeria pop culture. Perhaps no other example of this process better demonstrates it than the pidgin English, a Nigerian language popular across social boundaries and class that originated as the Nigerianization of the British English required to enter the chambers of the evolving high culture in the emerging state. This language has been used to produce much of the country’s popular culture content, with new words created almost every day by the common people, some of which have spread to other parts of Africa. Despite this, the Nigerian pop culture space is still primarily measured by Western standards and value systems, driven by the modern and industrial world culture ( Rubenstein 1978 ). 3

Just as both the colonial government and the missionaries needed literate indigenous men and women, so did the European merchants whose goods were advertised on the emerging newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. The extent to which this phenomenon killed local businesses, industries, and talents cannot be quantified. The introduction and widespread growth of radio and television devices in the later colonial years worsened this already precarious situation for the local industries, as their market and products could not compete in this emerging space that was defining the objects, images, expressions, and general aesthetics of the modernity sought after by virtually all their potential consumers.

Pop culture was also being produced and expressed through nationalists’ literature, many of whom were canvassing their society’s transition into modernity. These writers’ literary productions mediated the link between the traditional and modern by seeking to model a balance between the two. Through their works and post-independent writers, the people could picture the emerging space and the culture that sustained it while they found their place within it. As with the newspapers, Yoruba writing and writers like Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano pioneered this literary space ( Falola 2020 ). Because of the proximity of their towns and villages to Lagos’ coastal city, they also pioneered the film industry in Nigeria, with the likes of Hubert Ogunde taking center stage, coming from the traveling theatre tradition.

Owing to its strategic geographical location, Lagos became the capital of popular culture production in Nigeria during this time and since, a position of influence that has since been extended to the whole of Africa. Although it was already surfacing as a force to be reckoned with in distributing the objects of modernization that had been coalescing since the opening of its waters for European trade in the fifteenth century ( Payne 1882 , 9), Lagos became ideal for the burgeoning educated class and others seeking opportunities during the colonial period. These were the inhabitants populating the city, young and agile, the first consumers of the new, evolving trends. By the time the country gained independence, Lagos had become perhaps the only city in the world where a prison cell could be better lodging than a private residence, both in terms of congestion and sanitation ( Davies 2014 ). The Jagudas —an eponym that took root in colonial Lagos and was used in referring to thieves—and other skilled and unskilled workers all saw the same opportunity in Lagos, relying on a common strength shared: the ability to integrate into modernization and this evolving culture. Lagos was effectively to Nigerians—especially in the Yorubaland at the time—what America was to adventurous Europeans of the modern age. Upon independence, it became the New York of Africa.

Accordingly, while the population was influenced by the emerging archetypes and coding of European objects, performances, images, and expressions disseminated through the media and everyday personal encounters in the city, they also became the archetypes for their kinsmen in the hinterlands. New and popular cultural elements were created in dancing, music, fashion, socialization, and general lifestyle, based on imported Western cultural forms. Moving to the post-independence period, much has changed in the space, archetypal figures, objects, performances, and codes that produce this model culture. Nigeria, like other African countries, was birthed into the community of sovereign states during the Cold War, a time when, despite the lack of direct conflict between the hegemonic powers, it remained necessary to own missiles with intercontinental range, deadly fighter jets, and the constellation of other military weapons and facilities, data, and content apprehension to match other states. Building a culture that was not heavily influenced by the Western cultural imperial project would mean owning the space and technology through which cultural contents are disseminated. But Nigeria was only, and remains, an independent state in terms of political representation solely, with the economic and technological strength to muster this capability into social viability were dangerously lagging the initial Industrial Revolution that produced the first printing, audio, and audiovisual machines.

This was worsened by the economic crisis that erupted after the bubble-bust resulting from the crash in global crude oil prices in the early 1980s and subsequent World Bank intervention ( Tomori and Tomori 2004 ). The bastardization of the economy and well-being of the population further dampened any local production efforts, including video films, music, and even literature, hampering the creation and incubation of indigenous Nigerian pop culture as the existing media outlets continued to feature and distribute popular foreign contents. To date, Nigeria’s local industries have still not recovered from this. Generally, from production and distribution of VHS consumer video technology for film productions and vinyl records for the emerging musical genres to digital audio and audiovisual innovations that reinvented the Nigeria music and film industries after the recession, the core of the Nigerian popular culture industry transited. Compared to magazines and newspapers, their contents and messages are far more apt to go viral. Within this transition, popular music performed by hierarchically structured bands was replaced with electronic distribution as the “new pop industry gave individuals artistic and economic responsibilities to act as creative entrepreneurs,” ( Krings and Simmert 2020 ), made possible by the creation of audio workstation software in the early 2000s.

The music was shorter, the art signifiers took on pseudo names and were younger, the vans were different—usually younger—and the art, unlike in all their aesthetic forms, even though they found common ground in the topics of discussion: women, love, money, and other mundane issues. Unlike in the pre-digital revolutionary times, these new genres, now fused under the umbrella genre “Afrobeats,” are seldom seen eulogizing “big men” in their music, a typical preoccupation of the hierarchically structured bands. The new “Afrobeats” were losing their base to the millennial revolution in the Nigerian music industry, championed by labels like Kennis Music and Dove Records. As a culture that quickly evolves, the Nigerian music industry is again shifting, now to the form of music produced by Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Victor Olaiya, Barrister, and Osita Osadebe, albeit with a modern twist. Music produced by likes of Adedeji Olamide (Baddo), Ayodeji Balogun (Wizkid), Adegunle Gold, Chibuzor Azubuike (Phyno), Innocent Idibia (2face), Patrick Okorie (Patoranking), and other Afrobeat artists sometimes come reference or evoke these old musicians. This contemporary aesthetic form stands in stark contrast with the productions of the early hip-hop stars like Eedris Abdulkareem, Eddy Montana, and Tony Tetuila (all from the Redemies group), 2face, Black face, and face (all of the Plantation Boyz), and others who were then struggling to meet the standard of the American music flooding the Nigerian market space, especially in terms of beats.

The claim of these artists to Afrobeat as a term, aside from the confusion of foreign commentators that established this tag with them ( Krings and Simmert 2020 ), could be attributed to Fela’s Afrobeat sound revolution in the 1970s and the fundamental change in their sound in the latter part of the new millennium. Like Aaron Copeland, who fused pop with folk and classical music, Fela began to create a new form of music in 1970s Nigeria as part of his rebirth symbol. Afrobeat came to be a merger of jazz (which he was playing prior), highlife, and soul ( Olaniyan 2001 ). But while the ideology informing Fela’s Afrobeat that demanded music and other art productions of a culture must be a tool for engineering social changes to improve the long-life project of the people and development of their society, the latter artists’ Afrobeats is largely governed by no common ideology other than that which is popular and commercially savvy ( Olatunji 2007 ). Like the Achebes, Soyinkas, and Faletis, Fela was a formidable force at using his art to negotiate the modern space while leveraging indigenous themes and elements. Before Fela’s Afrobeat, there had been domestically successful pop music genres like calypso, highlife, juju, Apala, Sakara, fuji, and many more (Sole 2009; Collins 2015 ). 4 Artists like Bobby Benson, Isaac Okafor, Shina Peters (pioneer of the Afrojuju, which emerged from juju in the 1980s), Sunny Ade, and Dan Maraya epitomized Nigerian musical pop culture until the hip-hop invasion of the new millennium. Like a Palmstore message reads, “show your dancing skills and trend,” Nigerian musicians have internalized this pairing of their music with dance styles and have adopted it in their art. Since the Ijo yoyos, miliki, disco, sinko, and others that reigned in the early years of Nigeria’s independence, to the more recent galala, yahooze, shakushaku, shoki, skelewu, gbese, and countless others produced almost every day, Nigerian dance crazes have evolved as a formidable signifier in the emerging pop culture in Nigeria which many “artists” have seized to their advantage for commercial purpose.

Whereas all of the above largely came into being within the technological capacities of the First through Third Industrial Revolutions, globalization and pop culture in the Fourth Industrial Age has modified the epistemic paradigm of everyday living experiences and possibilities of peoples around the world ( Popkova et al. 2019 ), some of which Waldfogel described as “horrifying descents and confusing loops” ( Waldfogel 2018 ). Now, finding archetypal figures and accessing objects, performances, contents, and other textualized art forms with symbolic and/or plain interpretations do not necessarily require watching TV, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, going through magazines, or buying literature, but rather a network connection brings all these together in a single smartphone device, tablet, or computer. Through this change, the production and dissemination of popular culture are further democratized ( Duff 2002 ). With a personal computer, appropriate software, and a sound system, a conventional studio is replaced, allowing many youths to join this market. The rate and medium through which celebrities (the archetypal figures for popular culture) are produced in this age of social media are appalling, making popular culture even more debased in content and character because its commercial value outweighs its moral or cultural worth. Like elsewhere, the arrival of cable channels like African Magic in 2003, blogs, and other digital innovations contributed considerably to revolutionize the pop-culture production and distribution space in Nigeria.

From YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook to the cable networks, Nigerians, following the global trend, create new media celebrities out of any act that fascinates them and feeds into their popular consciousness. In the comic scene, online comedians are making waves, leaving stand-up comedians with no option other than to join this space, where they can reach millions of consumers at a time. Broda Shaggy, Taaooma, Barrister Mike, Officer Woos, Woli Agba, and many more are prominent examples of these contemporary comedians who keep their fans entertained via online skits. Traditional stand-up comedians like Basketmouth, Ay, Akpos, and others still popular in the Nigerian comedy industry have switched their productions and distribution to these online media. Like their counterparts in “show business,” they also shape this popular space. As earlier mentioned, even though this space is consistently under reconstruction in terms of language, expression, performance, and packaging, it remains heavily anchored and mediated by Western values. Simply, if it appears on American TV, it is suitable for Africa/Nigeria.

Neocolonialism and the Problematic Nature of Nigerian Pop Culture

What this production shift, caused by recent digital innovations, portends for the future of human society and culture has been a source of concern for scholars like Waldfogel, who explored the critical question: “Are we living through cultural Dark Ages…. or through a digital renaissance?” ( Waldfogel 2018 ). As the evidence shows, though, humanity is nowhere near stepping back into the Dark Ages. Instead of an expected regression in art production due to the loss of revenue thanks to free online downloading, streaming, and reading sites and applications, 5 the rate at which these works are produced is unprecedented. Still, the question that remains—and will remain for a long time to come—is how the aggregate of the value-system this so-called digital renaissance portrays impacts the people and shapes society. As the Canadian mass-media theorist Marshall McLuhan rightly observed, the “everyday commercial objects,” which now mostly stream through the Internet and television programs, are to the general public—the audience—what artifacts are to the archeologists, only in this case, these images contextualize the meanings and interpretations of the present, rather than the past ( McLuhan 1951 ).

In this process, dominant meaning systems, stemming from the organic culture and its traditions, are deconstructed, new meanings evolve, and new narratives informing the new normal emerge. This is demonstrated in the ideology behind the contents and narratives of some Nigerian TV shows, film and music productions, and other art forms of “art’ now emerging on social media, all of which shall be commented on shortly through examples. In the meantime, further demystifying this paradigm of understanding, Storey, in his book on cultural theories and popular culture, identified two broad connotative interpretations of culture to unravel the contours, mechanisms, and interpretation of popular culture, which could also be referred to as commercial or mercantile culture. It is essential to understand these two strands, as one explains culture in light of lived experiences or practices—as part of a way of life—while the other puts it in context of signifying practices, as in “texts and practices whose principal function is to signify, to produce, or to be the occasion for the production of meaning” ( Storey 2018 ). In the latter manner, culture as a signifier curates, informs, performs, animates, and establishes the way of life (lived practices) of a society. More often than not, this is time-, class-, and space-bound. Put differently, acts of socializing like clubbing, having dinner with loved ones, and going to cinemas or practices that transcend what, when, and how we eat and drink our consumables, or even our expression and expectations are all constantly produced and reproduced through the culture industry.

But popular culture transcends any limitations on cultural signifying while retaining the power that culture wields in society. Apart from their individual signification, the collective representations of these art productions are “sign-systems” that require examination with the view of “unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature” ( Barthes 1991 ). Scholars like Langer—and even Barthes—think that signs and symbols, both of which are present at the core of the performance and visual art productions, are signifiers that communicate readings through sensory reality in a coded manner that is culturally interpreted with symbolic essence and which betrays the purity of mental linguistic communication ( Langer 1988 ). Like other popular art forms, images and performances are thus not stand-alone creations of inspiration unconnected to the general social reality of their time. Sadly, it portends nothing more than confusion—a macabre confluence where the arts and the post-independent state meet. In his 1978 article on Nigerian pop culture, Rubenstein could not but agree with Chinweinzu’s description of the “schizophrenic nature” of the extant relations between Africa and the West. Concluding from his study of five Lagos-based magazines published at the time, the Drum , Spear , Trust , Lagos Life , and New Breed , Rubenstein posed an instructive question that is difficult to ignore:

… how else can one characterize the juxtaposition of articles in these magazines about current business trends and delta river goddesses, or advertisements for lucky talismans and herbal remedies alongside full page spreads on Yashica and Toyota? Need one point out that such senseless juxtapositions of form and triviality of content echo our own, as farce follows tragedy. (1978, 262)

Since this article was published, much has changed as the Nigerian media industry has taken a new form and been shaped by contemporary globalization trends driven from distant lands. The contradictions and tragedy of the media mentioned above would come to be only the tip of the farce after the African disaster in the following years. The contradictions are not only palpable in the representation of African spirituality and medicine in the Nollywood movies but have also become conventional for the big and small media houses like Punch , Vanguard , the Nation , whose editorials, opinion pages, and essence demand the social reengineering of the Nigerian state but have no problem sharing these same culturally and politically conscious pages with updates about debased TV programs like Big Brother Naija . One can even get news alerts if you subscribe to any of their channels for these petty-minded performances. As with the magazines and newspapers, the confusion in understanding the difference between a talisman and African herbal medicine or science in Nigerian films, for example, awaits you like a tax-collector.

These confusions demonstrate, as with the art produced by every culture, the inner workings of the modern Nigerian state. Barber, in alignment with other scholars previously mentioned, put it correctly in her work on the anthropology of texts—which invariably includes all manners of performance—when she attributes the textual productions of society to the expression of their evolution and being, incomprehensible solely through day-to-day living experiences ( Barber 2007 ). It is a common observation among scholars of Nigerian popular culture to note the disentanglement of these arts—except for literature, which no longer appear to be popular anyway—from the intellectual paradigm governing African cinema and the current debates running through the country ( Hayes 2000 ). The general opposition that the arts demonstrate in analyzing current political events and subscribing to ideologies that don’t call for radical reorganization of society ( Adejunmobi 2002 ) characterizes their generic form. This is particularly true in recent times where the gatekeeping culture of scrutiny and critical evaluation among those in the loop of these art productions, which could have moderated this space in previous eras, is evaporating. A holistic look at this trend suggests that the cause can be laid on its socio-economic condition.

The socio-economic reality of the post-independent Nigerian state ( Ige 1995 ; Maier 2000 ; Kalu and Falola 2019 ) has left many in this culture’s production and performance as either starkly illiterate or “half-baked” graduates of the Nigerian education system. Be that as it may, they are struggling to survive in a system that leaves them with no intellectual stamina to engage in the evolving intellectual discourse about Africa, or more narrowly, Nigeria, in their work. Indeed, in the spirit of 1920s America, when the culture began to take root, these artists, until more recently, were outcasts from their families and communities, considered to be lazy, debased, and rascally. They focus on nothing more than for their shows rather than conscious construction of the popular space. Together with the mainstream film industry, the hip-pop culture has helped puncture society’s social fabric with their promotion of certain dressing styles and fashion, expressions, and thoughts, especially among the younger demographic who are the most avid consumers of their art. Most often than not, they create their archetypal figures from these actors, actresses, and “artists.”

Conversely, the news media and other media outlets employing professionally trained and certified staff—some even with better qualifications than a Nigerian university lecturer—bear the sin of earning their living working under a petite-bourgeoise class that owns and controls their industries. An unfortunate paradox is that, even as they supposedly advocate for the people’s progressive course, they are themselves victims of a neocolonial state. The need to keep these establishments afloat, pay staff, and make a profit has shadowed their eagle’s eye.

The TV show mentioned earlier, Big Brother Naija , is the Nigerian version of the various reality shows that began to gain ground in the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century, many years after the economic prosperity of the country had turned its population into exploiting “reality” for leisure and entertainment. The whole idea of pop culture in America came not only in response to the Victorian-Puritanical British cultural system but also as a form of expressing social and economic freedom. The latter motivation kept popular culture stubbornly “popular” in America and the United Kingdom, despite the fierce opposition of the state through laws and other forms of censorship. In Nigeria, this show’s average consumer lives on approximately $2 and works more than six hours per day ( Kazeem 2018 ). In contrast, the average American—who lives well above this pay rate—spends about three hours working per day, according to a recent poll, while the rest of their time is split between sleeping, watching the TV, and engaging in any other mundane activities ( Waldfogel 2018 ). Yet, the Nigerian viewer has been so swept up with the popular trend that they don’t consider the contradictions that keep reproducing programs like this. For one, aside from the time they exhaust on this program, which is to keep them entertained, they are made to contribute to the millions of naira given as reward to the inmates, the “winning” participants. Through this mass-funding strategy and the advertisements they sell, the producers and the participants go home smiling with great profits, while the average Nigerian is left with their problems because, in the end, the shows lack any real purpose or aim other than the success of the program, money, fame, and a life of luxury.

Nothing demonstrates this better than how the inmates are evicted from the house by the audience, who vote to retain or reject them based on the impressions they hold about them based on what is shown on their television screen. A winner emerges from this exercise in mediocrity and irrationality, and one wonders what real skill or ideology makes this person stand out from the other adults housed in the same facility for weeks, performing incoherent tasks that are better left to elementary pupils trying to improve their intellectual faculties and domestic skills. The American government continues to lead the world in technological advancements and innovations through keen educational and research funding—some of which forms the basis for their TV shows—while Nigeria cannot even sponsor comprehensive research into its many plants and herbs. The result has been a perpetual dependence, even regarding art production, as seen in Big Brother Naija .

The point is that the society that birthed these so-called reality shows has invested so much into its people and economy, to the degree that the social environment that engineered it comes naturally in response to its socio-economic realities. Moreover, the recent experience of countries like the United States and Japan has shown that the more a society develops economically, the more debased its social forms. 6 But the reverse is seen in Nigeria as they, like other African countries, impose this sociocultural decline on their society even before dreaming of economic prosperity. Ironically, the Nigerian school kids that are supposed to be given the type of Big Brother tasks that shoot mediocrity to fame are inventing gas cylinder gauge systems, fire extinguishers, dummy cars, and much more in local contests, without a single sponsor or attention. The winners of such competitions can hardly go home with quarter-a-million naira. It is the same tale for school graduates, whose first-class certificates have been taken over by rodents. This trend lends some truth—even if only relatively—to the catchphrase that has gained traction among Nigerian youth lately: “school na scam,” education is a scam. Such a program’s glorification promotes the American narrative and twentieth-century culture, where idleness and a fixation on mundane things are rewarded bountifully.

Similarly, a program called Ultimate Love , shown on the same cable channel, offers the illusion that young adults who cannot find soulmates in the “real world” would find one on a reality TV show, where money and fame are at stake. Watching the most recent edition of this program, one wonders how a young adult of about twenty-one-years of age or an undergraduate of about the same age fits into the program’s supposed aim: to matchmake couples into marriage. It is not esoteric knowledge to state that this concept is opposed to the ideology that has been sustaining marriage traditions in Africa instead of the West, where this show’s template is taken from. Need one add that, if Africa has no other value possible to reengineer the human civilization, it has the marriage tradition to bequeath? Marriage in Africa is traditionally between two families, a relationship sustaining the marriage, come what may. Now, where are the parents and siblings of these reality show couples who should share the same conviction of a happy relationship between these two? In a way, such programs like this and the Big Brother Naija reduce African value systems to something inapplicable to the modern world.

Overall, Nigerian youths are deluded by the images and portrayal of love, personhood, money, lifestyles, and other popular content shared by programs like Big Brother Naija and Ultimate Love . Moreover, the most significant gains made by these shows always go elsewhere; but Africa—Nigerian money, in this instance—is used to service European, American, Indian, and Chinese economies.

The forgoing conforms to the larger culture that seems to have come to stay in Nigeria and other modern states: epitomized by fast cars and girls. In 2007, Olumide Edwards Adegbulu, popularly known as Olu Maintain, released an album he titled Yahooze . On the eponymous biggest hit of this album, the artist brought the fraudulent activity popularly known as Yahoo-Yahoo in Nigeria to the limelight as he gloried in his scamming skills and the alert he just received from the show. Whether true or not, the content of the song and the collective representation displayed in work produced by other “artists” in their music (audio and video), actors and actresses in their movies, program hosts on their TV shows, the newspapers and magazines in their content, and the advertisement companies on their billboards, are all sign-systems that inform on the collective consciousness of the society. “Yahooze” was one of the biggest hits at the time, with old and young showing off their dance skills to the tune.

Many of the movies produced locally, save a few recent exceptions, portray Africa as a land of darkness, where possibilities emerge only through blood money rituals and other obscene acts. Even though they end their stories with the tragic turn of events, a narrative form that has been described as the “aesthetics of Outrage,” altogether, they leave their audience with a fear of the unknown. This is only heightened as they garnish the scenes with imagery and narratives of repressive powers beyond the terrestrial meddling in the characters’ affairs. While these narratives could be—and are, in some cases—an accurate representation of the society they project, they also fan the embers of superstitious beliefs that have long held the society to the backwaters, providing an alibi for laziness and, by grand consequence, promote religious slavery. Maybe a study into the relationship between Nollywood and religion in Nigeria will provide scientific proof of how Nollywood movies have helped grown churches and mosques while simultaneously rendering the same population spiritually vacant and these religious institutions ineffective. Hayes also observes that common domestic problems are inflated into mercantilist deals in these movies ( Hayes 2000 ).

Like in the movies, we see an increasing crime rate and corruption in real life. While the churches and mosques are gaining more members, the contradictions are everywhere. The Nigerian culture industry does not reflect any substantial conflict with the realities of modernization they project. 7 Revealingly, popular film culture lives beyond the movie screens, especially in the recent digital age. Social media now offers viewers the opportunity to better understand the aesthetics of outrage in these movies. Yes, the artists’ personal lives have become “upcoming events,” sometimes even more important and exciting to their fans than their art and acts. Artists have always held the place of role models and cultural ambassadors in the imagination of their audience—archetypal figures—due to the sensations and emotions aroused by their art. If the movies truly teach about morality, virtue, Africanity, moderation, contentment, and all that is culturally gratifying as they may claim, the nuances exhibited on social media by those producing the knowledge speak otherwise. The aesthetics of outrage in the movies only put the judgmental reactions of their audience to use as temporary relief from their woes. In the long term, the contradictions of modernization and societal changes often expressed in the movies in the form of a moral compass to navigate the evolving society are seen as the drivers of this industry and their artistic productions. These render Nigerian pop culture into a parodical reflection of the unstable theatrical performances of the Nigerian political elites.

Collective performance as a sign-system is palpable in the trends of twenty-first-century popular culture—because of the rate of distribution through the digital loop—when one considers the effect of the archetypes and signifiers on people as a reflectional tangle-like the murmuring of a random song in one’s head. And here lies the greatest strength of the phenomenon: it can influence only an involuntary impulse requiring no conscious presence to be popular. The full lyrics of the song “Yahooze,” which cannot be reproduced here for fear of space, concretize the ideology producing the Nigerian pop culture. As scholars of text and culture have agreed, one could extrapolate that, in the coming centuries, when our grand descendants or some aliens from elsewhere decide to conduct their sociological, archeological, anthropological, or ethnographical studies of our time, it shall be a tale of how our space was invaded by a cacophony of thoughts and debased ideology. A caveat: there is no surety that their pop culture would be better any than ours, for the same reason the present century has been shaped this way. Progress in science and technology might mean improvement in the advancement of free culture and the expression of that freedom, but it is not clear in Nigeria that this would translate into its economic liberation as well, years after political independence.

This is because the expression of cultural freedom in the state, like in other African countries, only feeds the neocolonial structure, and it feeds it fat. The general concern of the worsening education system and Nigerians’ interest in education and conscious thinking will not disappear anytime soon, but the expression of cultural freedom in the coming years will only create more illusions and myths of civilization for mercantile purposes where only those producing the signifiers (the objects, images, and all) will annex the lion’s share ( Hancock 1989 ) and, by implication, shape the narrative. Hence, if the holidays remain in Abu Dhabi, the birthday parties in Dubai, the wristwatches imported from Switzerland, the private jets from the United States, the honeymoons in Athens, the shirts and gadgets from China, the shoes from Italy, the cars from Japan, the hair from India, and our women are forced to bleach to white and walk naked to be perceived as “sexy” (even when they never experienced the kind of weather and environment that made their American archetypes look this way), it remains to be seen how the culture being produced in this process can engineer the economic and political changes the same people are clamoring for. In a global world, driven by capitalism and the defense of the capital, popular culture cannot operate or be produced under a different regime.

This is why it is referred to in this study as a mercantile culture. Since the culture was initiated by Black Americans and found a base across the population, it has been hijacked by big money, and in the current age, big money has been overthrown by digital technology so that any Kola and Dapo can produce and commercialize their popular content with expected returns.

This is even more so in the context of traditional teaching pedagogy.

In fact, in the case of the latter, it was the returnees now settled at Abeokuta—a settlement that had just become populated by the Egba and other refugees of the Yoruba nineteenth century wars—that invited him for the purpose of “bringing light” to the nascent settlement.

Taking the voice of Chinweizu away from this reality will be a dangerous distortion, for as he rightly observed that there is a “flight from African traditions and those features that recall a past history are, unfortunately, borrowed remnants.”

Many of these came from different places: the calypso from the West Indies and highlife from Ghana, and others, like juju, resulting from local mixtures of different genres including jazz and highlife. Others mentioned above would later come to be incorporated as varieties of juju.

Although commonly with an ad-supported experience wherein the cost is supposedly covered by the advertisements placed on the site or application.

Take marriage and video games for instance. A British child can better sustain the tradition of marriage than an American, and the average Japanese male child is less interested in academic activities than video games.

This notwithstanding, musical artists like Folarin Falana (Falz) and Damini Ogulu (Burna Boy) and Nollywood stars like Tunde Kelani and Kunle Afolayan deserve to be singled out for their excellent art that engages current intellectual debates about Africa, with an emphasis on Nigeria, in a subtle, entertaining, and fascinating manner that does not distort the message.

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Culture and Development in Nigeria Research Paper

Introduction.

Culture is an important factor that affects the development of different sectors in any country’s economy. It can thus be said that development is inseparable from culture. The cultural policy of any country is usually considered as a binding factor, which enhances nationalism thereby unifying the citizens.

Different cultural sectors ought to co-work so as to enhance a quick development strategy. Thus, the combined synergetic knowledge of human beings, what they believe, and how they behave can go a long way in determining the rate of development among a particular people.

Nigeria is one of the largest countries in Africa with a great diversification in geography, socially, and culturally. Its populace is Africa’s highest. The rich resources coupled with huge market potential provide Nigeria with the necessary tools to develop her different sectors in the economy.

There are many private and co-sponsored organizations currently in operation to boost Nigeria’s development program. Currently, the country is undergoing through various socioeconomic restructuring. It should be noted that Nigeria’s cultural development has received support from the citizen’s themselves and military governments, an action that has also been recognized in the constitution.

It is thus quite necessary to comment by saying that the development of Nigeria will largely depend on her cultural policy. Cultural interference on development has caused major impediments to societal Nigeria and her economic status. A short synopsis of the history of Nigeria gives a blueprint on how culture punctuated Nigeria’s development by the civil wars in the mid and late twentieth century.

In line with this, various private organizations have been involved in addressing various development problems. They include the IMF, WHO, FAO, UN and its tributaries. The government has also been involved in one way or another in collaborating with non governmental organizations to address these problems.

Problems Facing Development in Nigeria

There are quite a number of problems that face Nigeria’s development programs. These problems range from cultural affiliations to infrastructural problems not forgetting administrative problems. Other problems also include those concerned with the media, political, and economic problems.

It is worth noting that culture has been given priority by Nigeria’s authorities as a means of fostering development. Cultural values and cultural activities have been loudly pronounced as ways by which developments in various sectors can be achieved (Culturelink 39).

Factors Affecting Development in Nigeria

Evolution of cultural life in Nigeria depends not just on the ethnic cultural values and behaviors but also on those habits inclined to religious obligations. The differences between cultural lives of Nigerians are dependent on various factors, such as, distance and environment.

For instance, rural cultures are significantly different from urban cultures. Their differences also come in on the part of habits and norms. Tradition is a major factor that marks the cultural life of Nigerians. Traditional forms of cultural events like festivities and music characterizes cultural phenomena in this country.

Cultural industries also have a stake in influencing the cultural lives of Nigerian people. Mass media as an example of such cultural industries bring to the Nigerians new civilization and technological parameters that the majority of the population can cope with and accept. As a brief recap, the cultural evolution of Nigerians in the recent past has thus punctuated the religious and traditional characteristics through mass media and by other swiftly spreading cultural industries.

International cooperation is also essential in determining the levels of development in Nigeria. International cooperation creates an atmosphere for cultural exchange, which is most of the time good for a country’s development. Hybrid culture is therefore developed in such cooperation thereby boosting economic and infrastructural growth. This also brings about the culture of tolerance in the contemporary societal Nigerian community.

Legislation is also another factor that has strongly influenced the development of Nigeria. The constitutionality of various cultural phenomena is crucial in determining the nurturing and development of particular cultures that can positively impart the Nigerian community. It is quite encouraging to understand that the Nigerian national government has granted the regional governments an exclusive mandate to nurture and develop local culture.

Actors Addressing the Development Problem

The solutions to development problems in Nigeria are being carried out by the national government in collaboration with major stakeholders. The private organizations are involved in informing and alleviating particular negative impacts of some cultures in the society. The collaboration of public and private sectors ensure that there is quality national global health, development, and well being of the society.

There are different kinds of public and private partnerships (PPP) in Nigeria. However, many private sectors usually operate autonomously and they include the following;

• Food and Agricultural organization (FAO).
• World Health Organization (WHO).
• World Bank.
• International Monetary Fund (IMF).
• African Development Bank (ADB).
• The United Nations (UN).
• The Private Sector.

In addition to the above organizations, Nigeria is a member of some regional trade organizations like ECOWAS and others such as NEPAD. While these trade unions are concerned mainly with traditional socioeconomic cultural relationships, non governmental organizations on the other hand are mainly concerned with promoting new ideas and in encouraging the public sector and the government to implement these particular policies. The following are some of the organizations that are concerned with cultural developments in Nigeria:-

The African Development Bank

The African development bank is involved in major activities in the water sector and in sanitation projects across Nigeria. The bank began its operation in the year 1971. Water and sanitation sectors in Nigeria have been major problems in the development of the entire country. This bank has contributed up to USD 3.75 billion on concessionary terms in literarily all economic sectors of the country (ADB 1). Rural water and sanitation sub programs in Yobe and Osun States were approved in 2007 with an amount of USD 88.32 million.

These projects aim specifically at increasing access to safe water supply and sustainable sanitation for the rural communities in different states across Nigeria. They also engage in infrastructure provision consisting of water facilities, sanitation facilities, and latrines, and in several other community development projects.

In addition to the above activities, the African development bank is also involved in sector capacity building where it supports the communities to ensure long term sustainability at all levels of the sectors, which also include the private sector and NGOs whereby there is a provision of equipment and hospital staff.

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)

UNEP is involved in conducting environmental impacts assessments on Nigeria’s environment such as oil fields. The purpose of their assessment studies are meant to examine the implications of oil pollution in Nigeria’s vast oil fields. Other factors that UNEP has been involved in determining are the nature and location as well as the extent to which oil contamination has reached. This arm of the UN has been collaborating with the government in undertaking its activities (UNEP 4).

There is a study that is still going on in Nigeria’s Ogoniland whereby UNEP scientists are collecting samples of water and soil together with other samples to perform certain analysis. The laboratory analysis of these samples are meant to form an assessment report that will provide a compiled result of the analysis.

This information will then be able to provide specific options to the government on how to clean up polluted areas. Thus, this long term goal to remediate contaminated sites is expected to be achieved in the beginning of the year 2011. The implementations of the recommended options will remediate polluted sites so that the local community can benefit as well as those people who reside in some parts of the Niger delta. Sustainable development will also be realized should this project become successful (UNEP 7).

The Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Non governmental organizations in Nigeria usually deal with issues that are concerned with sensitization. The issues include human rights and other more specific ones like the rights of women. Several non governmental organizations have committed themselves to fight for human rights advocacy.

To be more specific, Women’s Aid Collective (WACOL) is a non governmental organization in Nigeria that deals with women’s rights. Another organization that deals with a similar issue is the Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection (WRAPA). These organizations do deal with specialized issues unlike other non governmental organizations that deal with general issues (Okafor 38).

Most of these NGOs receive money from overseas and channel the resources in particular projects in line with their policies. There are also other organizations that specialize in giving poor people some financial aid with a view to alleviating their poverty status. Others deal with human settlement while others specialize in helping HIV/AIDS victims (Okafor 138).

Their main aim is to empower the less privileged people to acquire a better socioeconomic status within the community. Other environmental action groups specializes in matters of the environment such as ensuring that the environment is protected from hazards and to prevent or reduce the impacts of pollution.

The Effectiveness of Private Organizations in Nigeria

The private organizations discussed above are pretty successful in the implementation of their policies. This is for the reason that most of the organizations are run by foreign experts who manage these organizations. This is evident by the achievements of major undertakings that these organizations have been involved in. The partnerships between the government and the public sectors have increased the efficiency in service provision thereby improving the rates of different kinds of development in Nigeria.

The African Development Bank has succeeded in its water and sanitation project. Rural development especially in infrastructure has been enhanced courtesy of the African Development Bank. Thus, this kind of development partnership in fostering participatory approaches in dealing with matters of development is quite crucial especially in the economic sector. The organizational structure of this financial institution is transparent, and fosters accountability and equity, which further foster effectiveness.

The ADB has been able to do some partnership with the government of Nigeria in a joint fund that seeks to assist the development efforts of low income earners. As a result, low income earners have been able to benefit through this scheme by acquiring loans that attract low interest rates. Thus, Nigerian citizens have been empowered through this scheme (ADB Group 3).

UNEP is another organization that has been quite successful in implementing its policies especially in the environmental aspects. This is evident especially in the current ongoing project that is being undertaken in Ogoniland to analyze the field data collected so as to recommend the best options the government can take to deal with pollution.

If oil pollution can be dealt with then the environment will be friendlier to the habitation of human beings and animals. This will ensure a balanced ecosystem and thus enhanced sustainable economic growth.

Non Governmental Organizations have over time evolved to focus and take on the task of promoting and protecting a complete complement of human rights. The development of NGO’s in Nigeria has enabled peasants to rise in their socioeconomic status. Civil and political liberties have been realized throughout the nation of Nigeria (Okafor 32). Women have been specifically boosted financially by the federal ministry of women, which had been an initiative of the NGOs (Mwalimu 643).

Public Private Partnership and Development in Nigeria

Public private partnership is a form of contract or an agreement in which the private party enters into agreement with the government to provide a specified public service. The private service provider is responsible for the financing of the operations and all the risks involved. In some other partnership programs the services are paid by the particular users of the service.

Nigeria’s private sector is also dominated by foreign investment. For this reason, the private investments do not entirely deliver services within the framework of the national interest. There are so many programs that the Nigerian government undertakes in partnership with the private enterprises. The program of indigenization launched in 1972 and 1977 Nigerian Enterprise Promotion Decree marked a limited but significant participation of government in industrial development.

In pursuit of the decree’s objective to expand Nigeria’s indigenous private sector by excluding non-citizens from a number of categories of commercial service and small scale industrial activity, the machinery of government at federal and state levels were assigned various roles in facilitating the transfer of ownership and control of affected enterprises.

In addition to this, there are other financial institutions that have been set up to act as supporting public sector institutions. They include the Nigerian Bank for Commerce and Industry Training Fund.

This culture of private partnership by the government has helped a great deal in enhancing Nigeria’s development in various sectors like the economy and industry (Collins 8). Improvement of services by such kind of outsourcing has also influenced the speedy economic growth and an improvement of infrastructure across the country. Considering the outcome of the contribution of culture towards development, it can thus be said that culture is absolutely relevant in enhancing sustainable growth.

Effects of Culture on Development

Diverse cultures affect development of a country in different ways. There are currently so many cultures that impact negatively to a country’s economy. Negatively impacting cultures usually affect a country’s development. Corruption is a good example of those negative cultures that affect a country.

The Effects of Corruption on Development

Corruption in its primary form is described as the use of public power and resources for personal gains. Corruption is a major stumbling block on a country’s development path. Its effects on development are usually disastrous thus causing the decline of a country’s socio economic welfare (Frisch 4). Corruption is a culture that must be admonished in any society. In Nigeria, there are people who embrace the culture of corruption because they argue that corruption oils the wheels of development thus enhancing the rate of development.

It is rather absurd especially when public officers unlawfully enrich themselves together with their close relatives or friends. Public officers misuse the position in which they are placed, a situation that is quite detrimental to societal welfare.

To counter this, Nigeria has begun to engage in rigorous economic reforms so as to set the economy back on track. This has caused the onset of another culture that can cause positive progress to the economy (Obayelu 14). One of the ways through which this has been achieved is by the strengthening of the national currency. The use of anticorruption instruments in tackling the vice has continued to be used so that sustainable economic development can be attained.

A Personal Opinion and Argument

Culture is a substantial instrument that can be used either to abet negative development or to foster development of a country. There are those cultures that cause positive effects on the socioeconomic development in a country. Different impediments to development are usually determined by the cultural structure characterizing a particular community. It is therefore crucial and prudent enough to correct any errors arising from such impediments before any major step of development can be taken.

Culture can also act as an alternative route to national development.

In addition to corruption and administrative errors, political behaviors among leaders have also been detrimental to Nigeria’s development. One particular stereotypical phenomenon is that which involves African political leaders. They are known to overstay their welcoming (Coker & Coker 5). This can be negatively impacting to the development of a country since it leads to acts of violence.

There are various problems that face the development of Nigeria. Cultural, infrastructural, administrative, and political problems are among the notable factors that if not taken carefully and seriously can have detrimental effects on the socioeconomic aspects of the country.

There are also some traditions that must be weighed before they are performed. This is because certain traditions that depend mainly on the environment and religious affiliations punctuate the cultural life, which consequently affects development in several ways such as in the behavioral patterns.

It has been discussed how different actors try to address the development problems faced in the country of Nigeria. Such actors include international organizations such as FAO, WHO, UN, ADB among many others. Public-private partnerships have also been important in fostering development in Nigeria.

For instance, the African Development bank has partnered with some Nigerian commercial banks to economically empower the less privileged by giving them soft loans with reduced interest rates. Other stakeholders in the PPP include some NGOs.

The effectiveness of these organizations has passed the test of time by virtue of the results they give. Several projects that have been undertaken by these organizations have recorded substantial success rates. This is because they are usually managed by professional people who have the know-how. Corruption has also been discussed as a major cultural impediment to positive development.

Works Cited

ADB Group. “ Nigeria Trust Fund .” African Development Bank Group , 2010. Web.

ADB. Activities in the Water and Sanitation Sector in the Federal Republic of Nigeria . Water and Sanitation department. 2010. Print.

Coker, Oluwole, and Coker, Adesina. Cultural Exploration as an Alternative Route to National Development: Insights from Yoruba Verbal Arts. University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Kemanusiaan 16 (2009), 1-11.

Collins, Paul. Administration for Development in Nigeria . Lagos: African education press, 1980. Print.

Culturelink. “ Cultural Policy in Nigeria .” IRMO/culturelink , 1996. Web.

Frisch, Dieter. The Courier ACP-EU. The Effects of Corruption On Development. NO. 158, 1996, pp 68-70.

Mwalimu, Charles. The Nigerian Legal System: Public Law . New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2007. Print.

Obayelu, Abiodun. Effects of Corruption and Economic Reforms on Economic Growth and Development: Lessons from Nigeria . Department of agricultural economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. African economic conference. 2007. Print.

Okafor, Obiora. Legitimizing Human Rights NGOS: Lessons from Nigeria . Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc. 2006. Print.

UNEP. “UNEP Fieldwork In Ogoniland Is Still Ongoing.” United Nations Environment Programme . 2010. Web.

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1. IvyPanda . "Culture and Development in Nigeria." January 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-development-in-nigeria/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Culture and Development in Nigeria." January 6, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-development-in-nigeria/.

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Nigeria: education, history, language, & culture.

• The 234 Project (Austin, Texas) [Since 2015] "...a platform to promote the accomplishments of Nigerians globally and as an agency with the precise purpose to empower a young generation of Nigerians. We are committed to ensuring that Nigerian youths are not victims of a dismal education system but are discovered and mentored so that they can be agents of change themselves." --See especially: History -and- Business & Technology
• AfricanWriter.Com: "An Evening with Chinua Achebe," October 2009, The Library of Congress, Washington, DC   and related posts (USA)
• AfroMarxist, via YouTube.com: Chinua Achebe, interviewed in 1964 by Lewis Nkosi and Wole Soyinka , on his two novels "Things Fall Apart " and "No Longer At Ease." Video
• BBC News: "Nigerian author Chinua Achebe dies," March 22, 2013 (London, UK)
• The Guardian. (Online): "The significance of Chinua Achebe's short stories--Part 1 -and- Part 2 By Prof. Adekunle Mamudu, October 2017. (Lagos, Nigeria)
• The Independent. (Online): "Father of African literature,' Achebe, 82, dies after short illness," March 22, 2013 (London, UK)
• London Review of Books: "Things Left Unsaid," by Chimamanda Adichie, October 11, 2012 Review of: There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012) by Chinua Achebe . (London, UK)
• The New York Times: Excerpt --"The Education of a British-Protected Child" by Chinua Achebe, December 15, 2009 . (New York)
• Postcolonial & postimperial literature in English: Chinua Achebe and his works (Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island) -- via Columbia University Libraries
• Realnews magazine. (Online): "Sights and Sounds of Ogidi," June 17, 2013.
• Vanguard. (Online): C hinua Achebe: Exit of a Literary Giant, March 2013   (Lagos, Nigeria)  A series of articles
• Adire African Textiles (Dr. Duncan Clarke, London, UK) A commercial site that contains useful information on the history and manufacturing techniques of adire cloth and other textiles of western Nigeria; plus links.
• "The forum grew out of the need to assist in improving the capacity and competence of African leaders to tackle development challenges confronting Africa...A range of high-level conferences, seminars, workshops and publications."
• ALF Publications : e-books and reports on leadership, security, cooperation, development, etc.
• ALF annual reports
• Africamovies.Com (Brooklyn, New York) This is a commercial site for mostly Nigerian video films.
• "African Knowledges, Alternative Futures" -- Toyin Falola @65 Conference, January 29-31, 2018, University of Ibadan, Nigeria The full papers now due by January 15, 2018.
• "African Languages Technology Initiative (Alt-I) was set up to facilitate development of the necessary resources that will enable the engagement of information communication technologies (ICT) in African Languages. ...to appropriate various aspects of human language technology (HLT) such as speech synthesis, speech recognition, natural language understanding, machine translation and many others..."
• African Studies Association of the United States: "Professor Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi (1929-2014): A Eulogy with a Dirge" by Toyin Falola (August 12, 2014) (--via Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey)
• The Guardian (Online): "Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi (1929-2014)," August 24, 2014 (London, UK)
• Aké Arts & Book Festival, October 22-25, 2020, Lagos, Nigeria (Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria) "The Book Buzz Foundation is a non-governmental organisation...we organise a yearly (six-day) festival of arts and books..." --See especially: 2019 Programme
• Nigerian art is global on the Internet. Many electronic art exhibitions and online course materials include images of art and related texts on the artistic expressions of Igbo, Yoruba, and other Nigerian cultural groups. Look for them in the following web collections:
• African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning , Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. (Yoruba)
• "The Artist's Eye, The Diviner's Insight": African Divination Art from The Barry D. Maurer Collection , Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts. (Yoruba)
• Cutting to the Essence, Shaping for the Fire (Indiana University; Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences, Peoria, Illinois) (Yoruba)
• Sub-Saharan Collection of the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. (Includes a few examples of Ibibio, Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba art)
• Yoruba Art from Nigeria at the Krannert Art Museum (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) Epa Dance Mask Oye Ekiti region ; Esu Dance Staff ; and Opn Igede Ifa Bowl Osi Ilorin
• See also: Metropolitan Museum of Art -and- National Museum of African Art--Smithsonian Institution below
• Society of Nigerian Artists (Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria) Founded in 1963 .
• ANA: Association of Nigerian Authors (Lagos, Nigeria)
• Asiri. (Online) -- [Nigeria ; United States]: Asiri Magazine, 2013- An online cultural magazine that is "unlocking the secrets of Nigeria cultural heritage." The site includes current and recent news, feature articles on artists, writers, and various aspects of Nigerian cultural life, and in-depth interviews since 2014.
• AROCSA--Association for Research on Civil Society in Africa (Abuja, Nigeria) "AROCSA was founded in September 2015 [originally] in Accra, Ghana, under the auspices of the Association for Research on Non-Profit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), with the support of the Ford Foundation, to promote and advance a community of excellence in research and practice on civil society in the service of African development."
• "An Atlas of Nigerian Languages." (2019) . By Roger Blench. (Cambridge, UK) -- via Academia.edu ; 198 pages in PDF format. --See also: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation --via Roger Blench, UK
• The Africa Report (Paris): "Nigeria: Author, playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele dies at 54," August 10, 2022
• Brittle Paper (USA): "100 African Writers Celebrate Biyi Bandele's Life and Work," August 15, 2022 .
• The Conversation (Johannesburg): "Biyi Bandele: A Serial Storyteller Who Elevated Nigerian Culture," August 19, 2022 . By Ezinne Ezepue.
• The Guardian (Lagos): "For Biyi Bandele, Who Snapped and Snapped Out," August 14, 2022 . By Sola Adeyemi.
• The Art Newspaper. (London): "Looted Benin bronzes to be lent back to Nigeria," October 16, 2017
• BBC News: "Nigeria's opportunity for return of Benin bronzes," September 12, 2020 . By Barnaby Phillips. (London, UK)
• Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question -- A colloquium and a traveling art exhibition by Peju Layiwola, April-May 2010 (University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria) --Plus: 2010 review by Jimoh G. Jimga, Dept. of Creative Arts, University of Lagos
• Benin City Bibliography (2009) by Charles Gore. (via Direct Connection, UK)
• "Benin--Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria" Exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago, July 10--September 21, 2008 (Chicago, Illinois)
• Digital Benin: Reconnecting Royal Art Treasures (Museum am Rothenbaum, MARKK, Hamburg, Germany)  Forthcoming exhibition: 2022
• Griot. (Italy): "Benin Royal Museum: David Adjaye to Design the Museum Housing Artifacts Stolen in the Colonial Era," September 23, 2019 .
• The Guardian. (London): "Western museums try to forge deal with West Africa to return Benin bronzes," August 12, 2017
• Legacy Restoration Trust (Lagos, Nigeria) ...an independent, not-for-profit entity incorporated in Nigeria to support cultural heritage art and archaeological projects by providing research, attracting funding and securing execution capability for high-value arts and cultural projects...LRT’s flagship project is a series of activities in Benin City, Edo State that will culminate in the establishment of the David Adjaye-designed Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA)."
• The New York Times: "Smithsonian to Return Most of Its Benin Bronze Collection to Nigeria," March 8, 2022 . (New York)
• The Open University, UK: "Art, Loot and Empire: The Benin Bronzes." (February 2021) --via OpenLearn, on YouTube.com
• Quartz Africa: "The Return of Benin's Looted Bronzes...," November 30, 2018 . (New York, USA ; Nairobi, Kenya)
• The Smithsonian Institution: "Smithsonian returns 29 Benin bronzes to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria," October 11, 2022 . (Washington, DC)
• Tropen Museum: "Press Statement of the Meeting of the Benin Dialogue Group," July 11, 2019 . (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
• The British Museum: Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa, March-July 2010--Video --via YouTube.com A video about this past exhibition on sculptures from the historical kingdom in Nigeria.
• The Caine Prize for African Writing: 2019 Caine Prize -- "Skinned" by Lesley Nneka Arimah, Nigeria (UK) A prize given annually for the best short story written by an African author in English. -- Read the story "Skinned" by Lesley Nneka Arimah
• Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training (CEDDERT), 2012 (Zaria, Nigeria) The site offers general information about the centre and numerous articles by its scholarly members--- including Prof. Yusufu Bala Usman of the Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University and Abubakar Siddique Mohammed, CEDDERT Director. "The Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, is established to promote and advance scientific research and training for the purpose of providing immediate and long-term solutions to the problems of the democratic, community, and national, development of the people of Nigeria, the rest of Africa, and the African diaspora." --See also: 2016 web site
• Online Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics (2012) . Edited by Paul Newman Version 01. (With the assistance of Roxana Ma Newman) -- Bayreuth, Germany: DEVA, Institute of African Studies, University of Bayreuth. 173 pages in PDF format
• The Conversation: "J.P. Clark: the 'pepper' of the Niger Delta activism stew." November 12, 2020 . By Destiny Idegbekwe. (Washington, DC)
• The News: "J P Clark: Intimate Revelations by Friends, Colleagues, Children." November 13, 2020 . (Nigeria)
• Okayafrica: "Legendary Nigerian Poet and Writer John Pepper Clark Dies." October 14, 2020 . (New York)
• The Vanguard: "The pen drops as renowned poet, playwright, J.P. Clark dies." October 14, 2020 . (Nigeria)
• Columbia University, Institute of African Studies: "New Directions in Nollywood and Nigerian Cinema," April 22, 2016, Columbia University , 612 Schermerhorn Hall. (New York) --Preceded by a film screening of "76" by Izu Ojukwu on April 21, 2016. --See also: Nollywood below.
• "Cyprian Ekwensi." (2001) (Charles R. Larson, American University, Washington, DC; Extracts from The ordeal of the African writer , pub. by Zed Books, 2001) BPN newsletter (Online); no. 29 (December 2001) . -- Oxford, UK: Bellagio Publishing Network, 1994-
• "What Cyprian Ekwensi meant to me." (2001) (Kole Omotoso, University of Stellenbosch, Matieland, South Africa) BPN newsletter (Online); no. 29 (December 2001) . -- Oxford, UK: Bellagio Publishing Network, 1994-
• African Arguments (London): "Remembering Buchi Emecheta...my mother," by Sylvester Onwordi, February 1, 2017
• The Guardian (Lagos): "Of Buchi Emecheta and womankind," March 14, 2017
• The Guardian (London): "Buchi Emecheta, pioneering Nigerian novelist, died aged 72," January 26, 2017 --See also: Obituary (February 3, 2017)
• Postcolonial Web: "Buchi Emecheta: An Overview" (Prof. George Landow et al., Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island)
• The Punch (Lagos): "Nigerian writers mourn Buchi Emecheta," January 31, 2017
• Vanguard. (Lagos): "Renowned literary icon, Buchi Emecheta drops pen at 72," January 29, 2017
• Wasafiri (London): "A Sort-of Career: Remembering Buchi Emecheta," by Jane Bryce (February 2017)
• The Nigerian Voice: "Pa Anthony Enahoro Dies at 87" (December 16, 2010) (Lagos)
• Africanah.org: "Interview with Okwui Enwezor, director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany." June 1, 2014. By Daniela Roth . (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
• Aperture: "In Okwui Enwezor's Final Exhibition, An Urgent Portrait of American Life," March 12, 2021 . (New York)
• Artnews: "Okwui Enwezor, Pivotal Curator of Contemporary Art, is Dead at 55," March 15, 2019 . (Los Angeles)
• Britannica.com: "Okwui Enwezor: Nigerian-born art curator." March 15, 2019 . (Chicago)
• The Conversation: "The legacy of Okwui Enwezor--the curator who exhibited Africa to the world." March 27, 2019 . (Waltham, Massachusetts)
• Enwezor, Okwui. "Archive Fever: Photography between History and the Monument." (2008)   Excerpt from: Archive fever : uses of the document in contemporary art. Edited by Okwui Enwezor. (New York, N.Y. : International Center of Photography ; Göttingen : Steidl Publishers, 2008)  -- Reprinted 2014, via Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.
• The Guardian: "Nigerian Art Historian, curator, Okwui Enwezor, dies at 55," March 17, 2019 . (Lagos, Nigeria)
• The New York Times: "Okwui Enwezor, Curator Who Remapped the Art World, Dies at 55," March 18, 2019 (New York)
• "The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994" Exhibition (via Universes in universe -- Worlds of Art, Pat Binder & Gerhard Haupt, Berlin, Germany) Curator: Okwui Enwezor ; Co-Curators: Rory Bester, Lauri Firstenberg, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Mark Nash .
• Third Text: "Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019)," May 16, 2019. By Claire Bishop . (London)
• The Ben Enwonwu Foundation (Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria) "Established in 2003 in honour of celebrated Nigerian artist, scholar, educator, art administrator and statesman, Professor Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu (1917-1994)." The website includes information about various cultural and educational programs (scholarships and internships), the archive and research library, on-going research projects, and a bookshop.
• Federal Ministry of Education (Abuja, Nigeria) The site includes reports on the Education RoadMap (2009) and more recent policy statements in "downloads" section; plus related web links.
• Fela! The Musical . (New York) 2009-2010 official web site
• The Shrine: The Unofficial Website for Fela Kuti and Afrobeat Music (Julio Punch, The Netherlands)
• New Museum of Contemporary Art: "Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti," July 11 -- September 28, 2003 Exhibition--- New Digital Archive (New York)
• Africaman Original. (Carter Van Pelt; via Afrobeat.Music.Blogspot.Com) Originally appeared in The Beat , v. 5/6, 1997.
• Special issue of NTAMA: Journal of African Music and Popular Culture on Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (September 1998) (Universität Hildesheim, Germany)
• FOMWAN--Federation of Muslim Women's Associations in Nigeria (A buja, Nigeria)
• FESTAC: The Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture: A Partial Documentation . (Abdul Alkalimat, Urbana, Illinois, USA) This website is a digital collection of official documents handed to participants, some of the papers presented, video documentaries, and articles written about FESTAC '77, Lagos, Nigeria.
• Fula Language Acquisitions at Columbia University Libraries (2023) (New York)
• Fula Language on the Internet (via Columbia University Libraries, New York)
• G.I. Jones' Photographic Archive of Southeastern Nigerian Art & Culture (Prof. John C. McCall, in cooperation with Ursula Jones, Dept. of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois) "This is an archive of digitized photographs depicting the arts and cultures of southeastern Nigeria. The collection includes examples from Ibibio, Igbo, Ijo and Ogoni speaking peoples. All of the photographs were taken in the 1930s by the late G.I. Jones, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. The majority of the images are from the Igbo speaking regions where Jones conducted most of his research."
• Gumel.Com: Barka da zuwa filin Hausa (Mohammed Hashim Gumel, USA) A web site entirely in Hausa, with news from Nigeria (in English, from Nigerian newspapers or e-mail reports), Hausa radio program files, cultural information, and related links. See also: Hausa Language Resources on the Web below.
• Research Projects Includes basic information about "Slavery, Memory, Citizenship ; "The Nigerian Hinterland Project" (NHP) ; and Endangered Archives Programme
• Harriet Tubman newsletter. (Online) -- Toronto, Canada : York University, Department of History, 2000- (PDF files)
• Abubakarimam.com (Nigeria) Created in 2004, this small digital library consists of works by Abubakar Imam, originally published by Northern Nigerian Publishing Company in Zaria, includes several works in Hausa: Ruwan Bagaja ; Magana Jari Ce ; Tarihin Annabi Kammalalle ; and, his memoir in English.
• African Storybook (Saide, Braamfontein, South Africa) Search under "Read" for Hausa titles. Since 2013, a South African-based NGO publishes and promotes the dissemination of children's story books in African languages. As of early 2018, there are 58 e-books in Hausa from Nigeria -and- 28 from Niger.
• Boston University, African Studies Center---African Proverbs Project: Hausa Proverbs (Boston, Massachusetts) "The project team has gathered, edited and produced content for a multimedia instructional website for advanced Hausa based upon ten common proverbs/sayings . The website, featuring professional-quality video and audio of the languages in authentic situations, is a unique resource to help students to develop proficiency and cultural competence in Hausa."
• British Broadcasting Corporation World News Service on Radio in Hausa (and Links to BBC News in English) (London, UK)
• The British Library-Endangered Archives Programme: Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo [1939-1958] (London, UK) --See also: "World War II and the origins of Hausa newspapers: the early years of 'Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo'." --Plus: "Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, World War II and the Romanisation of Hausa," November 2015 .
• Online Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics (2012) . Edited by Paul Newman (Universität Bayreuth, Germany) See above
• Columbia University -- Hausa Resources -- Hausa Langauge and Culture Acquisitions at Columbia University Libraries (2023)
• Daily Nigerian . (Abuja, Nigeria) An online independent news site --in Hausa or in English-- and updated continuously, with articles since 2016.
• Deutsche Welle News Summaries and Radio Broadcasts in Hausa (Bonn, Germany)
• Google Books -- Historical Hausa -- Dictionary of the Hausa language, vol. 1 Hausa-English (1913) by Charles Henry Robinson (Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge, 1913) -- Dictionary of the Hausa language, with appendices of Hausa literature (1876) by James Frederick Schön (London: Church Missionary House, 1876) -- Grammar of the Hausa language (1862) by Rev. J. F. Schön (London: Church Missionary House, 1862) -- Hausa grammar, with exercises, readings, and vocabularies (1905) by Charles H. Robinson & Maj. J. Alder Burdon (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1905) -- Hausa proverbs (1905) by Capt. G. Merrick (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1905) -- Magána Hausa: native literature or proverbs, tales, fables and historical fragments in the Hausa language (1885) by J.F. Schön (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1885)
• Gumel.Com: Barka da zuwa filin Hausa (Mohammed Hashim Gumel, USA) A web site entirely in Hausa, with news from Nigeria (in English, from Nigerian newspapers or e-mail reports), Hausa radio program files, cultural information, and related links.
• Hausa : basic course. (1963) By Carleton T. Hodge and Ibrahim Umaru. [Washington, DC: Foreign Service Institute, Department of State, 1963 ; 399 pages] PDF format. (FSI Language Courses, USA) -- Audio lessons
• HausaFilms.TV -- Kannywood, Fina-finai, Hausa Movies, TV and Celebrities (Nigeria) Begun in 2011, a wiki-based directory web site for Hausa films, information about films--synopsis, directors, actors, etc., with excerpts of films found on YouTube.com and elsewhere.
• Hausa Home Page (University of California, Los Angeles) This site offers basic information and links on Hausa language and culture, including an annotated  bibliography and Hausar Baka Online--Videos for Hausa Language and Culture .
• Hausa Home Video Resource Centre--Blog (2016) (Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria and University of Wisconsin, Madison) Information about publications, film screenings, related web links, and other projects in the Hausa language. Note : Updates to this graduate student-run site were suspended in 2014 and briefly resumed in March 2016. As of April 2017, there have been no recent postings in at least one year.
• "Hausa Names for Plants and Trees (2007)." By Dr. Roger Blench, Kay Williamson Foundation, University of Cambridge, UK. --via Academia.edu ; 77 pages in PDF format .
• Hausa Online: Learning Hausa... (Nigeria & USA) "...a private weblog and not linked to any institution, University, or radio station." This web site features an extensive array of up-to-date of links to Hausa dictionaries, grammars, e-books, and videos.
• H-Hausa Discussion Network (H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences OnLine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan) "H-Hausa is for the discussion of issues related to Hausa language, literature and culture."
• Manhaja. (Online) -- Abuja, Nigeria: Blueprint Newspapers Ltd., 2021-- The Hausa language version of Blueprint , the English language daily newspaper from Nigeria.
• Online Bargery Hausa-English Dictionary (1934) (via Bunkyo University, Tokyo, Japan) A searchable online "dictionary" (glossary) for Hausa-English, English-Hausa translation, based on the dictionary and vocabulary by Rev. George Percy Bargery, originally published in 1934, containing over 45,000 words.
• Premium times Hausa . (Abuja, Nigeria) News
• Shamsuddeen :  Hausa Dictionary and Other Resources (Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria) The site includes English, Hausa, and Arabic dictionaries and word lists, Hausa Qur'an search,"Hausa psychology"--proverbs and sayings, etc.
• United Nations. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Muhimmin Jawabin da Majalisar Dinkin Duniya ta bayyana game da Hakkokin Yan-adam a shekarar 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (Geneva, Switzerland)
• University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies: Hausa Popular Literature Database (2001) "This database documents the private collection of Hausa popular literature and video film in the possession of Professor Graham Furniss of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. "
• Historical Society of Nigeria (University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
• Igbo Open Source Translation Project (USA) This site includes project-related links and contact information. "This project aims to translate popular software for the Linux operating system, including Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, Thunderbird and Open Office into Igbo."
• Igboid (Dr. Roger Blench, Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, Cambridge, UK) The files include an edited version (2013) of Kay Williamson's Dictionary of Onicha Igbo, originally published in 1972 .
• A portal website --under construction-- for Igbo language and culture in the diaspora. The site includes:
• Ahiajoku lecture series. (Online) -- Owerri, Nigeria: Imo State Ministry of Information and Culture, 1979-
• Igbo Language Center -- Lessons 1-4
• Igbo Radio (Onitsha, Anambra State, Nigeria) Since 2009
• "The Igbo Studies Association (ISA) was founded on November 8, 1999 at the African Studies Association (ASA) Confer­ence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to promote and encourage research and scholarship on Igbo history, culture and society."
• 21st Annual International Conference of the Igbo Studies Association--"Igbo Values and Leadership in Perspective," 8-11 May 2024, Enugu, Nigeria
• "...a non-for-profit Institute set up to promote research in the social sciences and the humanities, as well as enhance collaborative work between scholars in France and West Africa. First established in 1990, the Institute is operating from the Universities of Ibadan (Institute of African Studies) and Zaria (Post Graduate School) since 2006."
• IFRA Nigeria publications : e-books and e-papers
• Naija Archives Project --See especially: List and Interactive Map of Archives in and about Nigeria --and-- IFRA-Sponsored Digital Projects
• "African Studies as Discipline and Vocation." (2014) 2014 Bashorun MKO Abiola lecture at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association of the United States . --via YouTube.com
• The Guardian. (Online): "Abiola Irele dies at 81," July 4, 2017 (Lagos, Nigeria)
• H-AfrLitCine: Abiola Irele 1936-2017" (July 4, 2017) By Adéléké Adéẹ̀kọ́, current President of the African Literature Association . (USA)
• The News (Online): "Abiola Irele: A Tribute to the Master," July 3, 2017 (Independent Communications Network Ltd., Lagos, Nigeria)
• Analyses on "Boko Haram" -- via Nigeria: Politics & Human Rights. (Columbia University Libraries)
• Iqra'ah Publishing House (Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria) "The project of collecting and typesetting the Arabic manuscripts of the writings of Sheikhs Uthman bin Fodiyo, Abdullahi bin Fodiyo and Sultan Muhammad Bello (May Allah forgive them all) and their translation into Hausa and English and other languages was conceived in 1991, the very year I left teaching History at University of Sokoto, now Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sakkwato."
• Islam in Nigeria -- Web Dossier and Bibliography (2002) Library, Documentation and Information Department (Afrikastudiecentrum=African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, The Netherlands)
• The Library of Congress: "The State of Arabic Manuscript Collections in Nigeria" (2007) Report of a Survey Tour to Northern Nigeria, March 3-19, 2007 . (Dr. Angel Batiste, Area Specialist, Sub-Saharan Africa; Washington, DC)
• Muslim Heritage: "Arabic Medicinal Manuscripts of Pre-Colonial Northern Nigeria: A Descriptive List." By Mukhtar Umar Bunza. January 2018 . (Manchester, UK)
• National Council of Nigerian Muslim Organizations in the USA (Washington, DC)  Founded in 1976
• Northwestern University, Program in African Studies: "An Introduction to Islamic Movements and Modes of Thought in Nigeria." by Ibrahim Haruna Hassan, University of Jos. (2015) PAS/ISITA working paper no. 1 (2015) (Evanston, Illinois)
• Saving Nigeria's Islamic Manuscript Heritage (2008-2009) (Michaelle Biddle, Head, Preservation Services, Wesleyan University Library, Middletown, Connecticut) A report on a 2008 research tour of Islamic manuscript collections in Northern Nigeria. --See also: "Modibbo Ahmadu Fufore collection" report and "Conservation in a Box: a Primer"
• ZMO--Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin, Germany): "Salafi revolution in West Africa." (2017) By Abdoulaye Sounaye. ZMO working papers, no. 19 .
• Jos journal of humanities. (Online) : 2010-2014 -- Jos, Nigeria: Faculty of Arts, University of Jos, 2010-
• Kano: a bibliography by Sani Gwarzo (2002) (Dept. of Library Science, Bayero University, Kano; via KanoOnline.Com) A short bibliography on or about the state of Kano in Nigeria, concentrating on unpublished Ph.D. and Masters theses. Kano Online (2003) was a blog and forum for commentary on cultural and political affairs.
• New Maps of Old Lagos (Dr. Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, a historian of Lagos, Nigeria) A Nigerian digital project, with some images from the National Archives, UK.
• The 23rd Lagos Book and Art Festival, November 15-21, 2021 (Nigeria) "Since its birth in 1999, LABAF has manifested as a yearly ritual for top-notch publishers, adherent book lovers, literary activists and artists of all hues, attracting huge patronage from members of the public across ages and divergent persuasions."
• Lagos International Poetry Festival (Nigeria) The 5th Lagos International Poetry Festival--"Wide Awake", October 31--November 4, 2019 . The site includes the official program and highlights from the events.
• Lagos Studies Association (Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina, USA; University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria) "Established in 2017, the Lagos Studies Association is an international, interdisciplinary organization of academic and non-academic practitioners whose interest focus on Lagos and its peoples." -- The 8th Annual International Conference of the Lagos Studies Association--"African Identities: Peoples, Cultures, and Institutions in Motion," In-person/Online, June 25-29, 2024, University of Lagos, Nigeria ***The deadline for proposals is December 1, 2023 .
• LEAP Africa (Lagos, Nigeria) "Leadership, Effectiveness, Accountability & Professionalism (LEAP) Africa was founded in 2002...LEAP Africa is a youth-focused leadership development organization committed to raising leaders that will transform Africa." --See especially: Newsletters ; Reports
• A website highlighting the ethnographic literature and history of the peoples of the northern Mandara mountains in north Cameroon and northeast Nigeria.
• Northern Mandaras bibliography
• 'Depuis 1984, Méga-Tchad était un réseau international de recherches pluridisciplinaires sur l'histoire et l'évolution des sociétés dans le bassin du lac Tchad.'
• Blog Méga-Tchad
• Références bibliographiques, 1961-2019
• Bulletin Méga-Tchad. (Online), 1986-2010
• Masterhand: Individuality and Creativity among Yoruba Sculptors (1997-2000)
• Nok Terracottas (500 BC--200 AD) -- Part of: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: Africa
• See also: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (Permanent Collection) .
• Federal Ministry of Education   (Abuja, Nigeria)
• MOMA--Museum of Modern Art: New Photography 2023 : Kelani Abass, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Yagazie Emezi, Amanda Iheme, Abraham Oghobase, Karl Ohiri, and Logo Oluwamuyiwa (Lagos, Nigeria) The Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium . (New York)
• MUSON--The Musical Society of Nigeria (Lagos, Nigeria) "MUSON was founded in 1983 as a result of the interaction and commitment of some friends who love and appreciate classical music...The main objective of MUSON is the promotion of the understanding, enjoyment and performance of classical and contemporary music in Nigeria." --See also: MUSON on YouTube.com
• National Arts and Culture Directory (2010?)    (Abuja, Nigeria) Descriptions of programs and projects, plus contact information. 
• National Mathematical Centre Established in 1988 (Abuja, Nigeria)
• Oshogbo Art in the 1960s, January 23 - October 22, 2000 .
• "The Ancient West African city of Benin." (Permanent)
• "Images of Power and Identity": Yoruba Peoples (Permanent)
• "Olowe of Ise: a Yoruba sculptor to kings." (March-September 1998)
• "The Poetics of Line: 7 Artists of the Nsukka Group." (October 1997-April 1998) -- The Igbo tradition of Uli and its modern interpretations.
• The National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution: "The Carver Among Us -- Lamidi Olonade Fakeye, Yoruba Master Sculptor" Africa Voices . (Washington, DC) Images of the artist's work (wooden sculptures), plus helpful texts on Nigerian history and woodcarving.
• Ngiga review. (Online) -- Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria: Ngiga review, 2020- "Ngiga is a writers collective open to works from around the globe focused on netting different perspectives of our convergent lives. We are open to new forms of story telling, artistic explorations, poetic expressions and poignant essays and reviews that meet the need of changing time. "
• Nigeria International Book Fair, 19th Edition, May 19-23, 2021, UNILAG, Akoka, Lagos State, Nigeria (Nigeria Book Fair Trust, Ikeja, Nigeria)
• The Nigerian Academy of Science (Akoka-Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria) "[Established in 1977]...NAS is uniquely positioned to bring scientific knowledge to bear on the policies/strategic direction of the country and is also dedicated to the development and advancement of science, technology, and innovation in Nigeria." --See especially: NAS Reports -and- NAS on COVID-19
• NIIA--Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (2022) (Lagos, Nigeria) --The website only offers information about research agendas, events, programs, publication announcements, and recent news.
• NISER--Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria) The web site offers only an overview of the research agenda, contact information, and a listing of publications (none available online).
• Nigerian National Archives, Kaduna (Nigeria) --See especially: List of Records
• Nigerian Nostalgia Project (Houston, Texas) A blog site based on a crowd-sourced project first launched through Facebook. "Collecting photographs (including video and sound-bytes) depicting scenes and people from Nigeria between the mid-19th century and 1980."
• British Film Institute--BFI Southbank London: "Beyond Nollywood," November 18-20, 2016 (via Africainwords.com, UK) A 3-day programme of international Nigerian Cinema showcasing a new crop of filmmakers who are revolutionising the industry – beyond Nollywood.
• BUALA.org: "African Cinema and Nollywood: Contradictions." By Prof. Jonathan Haynes (2013) (Lisbon, Portugal)
• Conference -- "New Directions in Nollywood and Nigerian Cinema," April 22, 2016, Columbia University, New York
• IndieWire.com on "Nollywood" (Penske Business Media, USA)
• iROKO tv.Com (IROKO Partners Ltd., London, UK; New York, USA) Commercial site
• Nigeria Films.Com (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) "...dedicated to the projection of local Nigeria films in particular and African films in general. The profiles and life styles of actors, actresses and those behind the scene will be previewed. New and old films will be previewed and reviewed on monthly basis for your criticism and rating accordingly."
• Nollywood Arcadia (Dept. of Media & Communications, Arcadia University, Glenside, Pennsylvania)
• Northwestern University--Program of African Studies: Hostile takeover? Corporate interventions in Nollywood. (2016) By Jonathan Haynes. PAS working papers ; no. 24 . -- Evanston, Illinois: PAS, 2016. 18 pages in PDF format .
• Open University, Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies (London, UK): Nollywood Film Industry and the African Diaspora in the UK The site includes workshop abstracts, presentations, and other project information. "... a year long pilot project (2006-7) designed to explore the growing international marketing and reception of the Nigerian video/VCD film industry, with particular attention to its consumption in the UK." See especially: "Bibliography, Nollywood Project" By Françoise Ugochukwu
• Postcolonial text (Online): "Nollywood: spectatorship, audience, and the sites of consumption." (2007) by Onookome Okome Part of: "West African Cinema: Africa at the Movies," vol 3, no. 2 (2007) ; 21 pages in PDF format
• Social Science Research Network: "The rise of Nollywood: creators, entrepreneurs, and pirates." (February 2012) By Olufunmilayo Arewa University of California at Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2012-11 ; 39 pages in PDF format
• Ben Okri--Poet, Novelist, Artist: Official Site (London, UK)
• Ben Okri Web Page (Robert Bennett, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara; via Prof. George P. Landow et al., Brown University, "Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English")
• Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria: "The Yoruba Nation and Politics Since the Nineteenth Century"--Conference in Honour of Professor J.A. Atanda, October 9-11, 2017 Co-sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin (USA)
• Equiano Foundation Online "The Equiano Foundation aims to provide a valuable educational vehicle through which to resurrect, restore, and celebrate the meaningful contribution of Olaudah Equiano to Western, African, and African American culture..."
• Onitsha Market Literature : From the Bookstalls of a Nigerian Market (University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence, Kansas) "Onitsha Market Literature consists of stories, plays, advice and moral discourses published primarily in the 1960s by local presses in the lively market town of Onitsha, an important commercial site in the Igbo-speaking region of southeastern Nigeria. Twenty-one pamphlets appear here fully digitized and annotated to exemplify styles of expression found in this intriguing form of African popular literature. They are part of a unique collection of 101 pamphlets from Onitsha now held at the Spencer Research Library."
• The Orishas in Music (Discography) (Ian Scott Horst, via AOL) This site consists of two lists of recordings and artists. "The Orishas are divine beings originally worshipped by the Yoruba people of West Africa. Their worship was carried to the New World in the holds of slave ships, and became well established in many countries of the western hemisphere. Music is a major element in the worship of the Orishas. ... Orishas have also insinuated themselves into the melting pot of popular culture, and songs celebrating their existence have come out of many musical genres, from jazz to salsa to disco."
• "Other Africas: Images of Nigerian Modernity" Exhibit, January 15--April 21, 2002, University Museum of Southern Illinois University (John C. McCall and Christey Carwile-Routon; Carbondale, Illinois) A "digital record" of an exhibit on fashion, popular poster art, and electronic media.
• Oxford University, Department of International Development: Nigeria Research Network Publications (2012-2017) (Oxford, UK) NRN's focus was on Islam and politics in northern Nigeria. "The Nigeria Research Network was active at ODID until 2017. It connected European, American, and Nigerian academics with extensive experience with empirical and development-oriented research in northern Nigeria...[and] involved the late Professor Abdul Raufu Mustapha, David Ehrhardt, and Hannah Hoechner [among others]."
• Babawilly's Dictionary of Pidgin English Words and Phrases (Lagos Pidgin) (via NigeriaExchange.Com; Dearborn, Michigan and Lagos, Nigeria)
• Bookcraft, Ltd . (Ibadan, Nigeria)  Since 1988
• HEBN Publishers Plc . (Ibadan, Nigeria) Since 2006
• Nigerian Publishers' Association (Ibadan)  Since 1965
• University Press Plc (Ibadan, Nigeria) Since 1978
• "The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies: The Nigerian Case Study" (2003) by Alex Gboyega . PDF format . (CHERI--Centre for Higher Education Research and Information, Open University, London, UK) See also: the overall CHERI project on The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies .
• Sankore Institute of African Islamic Studies International--Digital Archive (Shaykh Muhammad Shareef, USA and Nigeria) This site offers interpretive historical summaries on Islam in Africa and free downloads of selected works in English translation of the writings of Uthman dan Fodio, his brother Abdullahi, his son Muhammad Bello, and his daughter Nana Asmau of the Sokoto Caliphate, and several other Islamic intellectuals in West Africa. "....conceived December 15, 1985...as the result of conversations between the present Sultan of Maiurno al-Hajj Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Bello Maiurno ibn Attahiru ibn Ahmad Zuruku ibn Abu Bakr Attiku ibn Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio, our shaykh, Imam Muhammad al-Amin ibn Adam Karagh, Ahmad Abideen Hassan and the founding director Muhammad Shareef...to collect the Arabic and Ajami manuscripts of the Sokoto Caliphate from northern Nigeria and convey them to the town of Maiurno in order to be edited and republished...To date SIIASI has collected 3000 Arabic manuscripts and 123 Ajami manuscripts (Fulbe’, Hausa, Wolof and Mande’). Of these, more than 89 have been translated and published by the institute."
• Saraba magazine. (Online) -- Lagos, Nigeria: 2009-2019. "Saraba is a literary magazine focused on the work of new writers in Nigeria and other parts of the African continent. Since 2009, we have published several issues of a magazine, editions of poetry chapbooks, and online-only work."
• Sharia implementation in northern Nigeria 1999-2006: a sourcebook. Compiled and edited by Philip Ostien. -- Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books, Ltd ; Bayreuth, Germany: Universität Bayreuth, 2007. 5 volumes in PDF format
• Max Siollun's Website on Nigerian History and Sports (Nigeria) Since 2018, this blog site features commentary and promotional information from the Nigeria historian Max Siollun. --See also: Nigeria History Channel --via YouTube.com
• Sokari Douglas Camp -- Official Site (London, UK) A woman artist from Nigeria who sculpts in steel and exhibits mostly in England. Her work is inspired primarily by the Kalabari masquerades, sometimes by the Gelede masquerades of the Yoruba, and by her own observations of life in England and elsewhere.
• "Church Ede - A Tribute to Her Father - Alali/Festival" . An exhibition held March 21 - June 20, 1999 at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
• Galerie Peter Herrmann: "Sokari Douglas Camp" 1995-2007 collections & exhibitions (Berlin, Germany) Online images of sculptures by the artist and links to her many exhibitions in Germany, the UK, and the USA.
• Annals of the Social Science Academy of Nigeria. (Online) . -- Abuja, Nigeria: SSAN, 1988- Launched in 1988 : this open accesss journal publishes original, unpublished and scholarly papers in the social sciences and related disciplines. The site includes current articles and the archive of older issues since 1988.
• Channels Television--Newsnight (Lagos, Nigeria): Interview with Wole Soyinka, August 22, 2022 . --via YouTube.com
• Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa (The Lumina Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria)
• Wole Soyinka, 1986 Nobel Laureate (Nobel E-Museum, Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden) A brief biographical sketch, Soyinka's Nobel lecture, and related links.
• Stanford University, The Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts: Wole Soyinka, 1998 (Peter Blank et al., Website editors, Stanford University, California) This site includes excerpts from published works and the Fall 1998 Stanford lecture by Wole Soyinka, a contemporary Nigerian author and world public intellectual; plus biographical information, related links, and a bibliography .
• Nigerian State Websites (Nigerian Investment Promotion Centre, Abuja, Nigeria) A list of links to the websites of Nigeria's 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja .
• TOFAC 2019--9th Toyin Falola Annual International Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora--"Religion, The State, and Global Politics," July 1-3, 2019, Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria --See Book of Abstracts 436 pages in PDF format
• United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research (Helsinki, Finland) Historical origins of persistent inequality in Nigeria. (December 2016) By Belinda Archibong . WIDER working paper; no. 161/2016 ; 78 pages in PDF format
• Archive of Sound and Vision: Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria A digital library of documents, performances, and historical events as well as recorded oral histories that describe life and practices from Nigeria and West Africa more broadly. The original recordings include an Ozid epic of the Ijaw, Urhobo Udjesongs, Yoruba Geleda, and theaters of Duro Ladipo.
• Nnamdi Azikiwe Papers, Nsukka, Nigeria "Nnamdi Azikiwe, (1904-1996) was the first president of independent Nigeria (1963–66). His personal papers include a draft of his memoirs, state papers from his presidency (1960-1966), and political papers related to the Republic of Biafra. This digital collection includes these materials as well as records from Azikiwe's two presidential campaigns in 1979 and 1983."
• University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies: Borno and Old Kanembu Islamic Manuscripts (London, UK) "...originates from Qur’anic manuscripts photographed by David Bivar in 1950s and donated to the SOAS Library in 2003. The initial collection consisted of four manuscripts represented by 230 folios in photographic and microfilm form, all subsequently digitised in 2005. In 2005-2007, in the course of fieldwork conducted by Dmitry Bondarev and Abba Isa Tijani in northern Nigeria, and in 2009-2013 by Dmitry Bondarev in Nigeria, Niger and the Republic of Chad, the corpus of digitised manuscripts was substantially increased to more than 5,000 folios."
• The website includes selected Nigerian publications in wide variety of disciplines, links to Nigerian newspapers, and information on Nigerian universities. "The National Universities Commission is a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Education charged with the responsibilities of orderly development of universities in Nigeria."
• Nigerian Virtual Library
• Directory of Nigerian Universities
• Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi
• Arewa House: Centre for Historical Documentation and Research The library includes a major Arabic language/Ajami script manuscripts collection.
• American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa State
• Bauchi State University, Gadau
• Bayero University, Kano
• Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State
• Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State
• Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State
• Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin
• Kwara State University, Ilorin
• Lagos Business School, Pan-African University (African Development Foundation, Lagos)
• Lead City University, Ibadan
• Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
• Redeemer's University, Ede, Osun State
• Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Port Harcourt
• University of Abuja
• University of Benin, Benin City
• University of Ibadan --See also: U. of Ibadan Institutional Repository --Plus: IFRA--Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique
• University of Jos --See also: U. of Jos Institutional Repository
• University of Lagos --See also: UNILAG Institutional Repository
• University of Maiduguri
• Institute of African Studies (2015)
• University of Nigeria, Nsukka -- Open Resources Repository The university scans and makes available on the Internet selected seminar and conference papers, journal articles, books published by UNN faculty, and UNN theses (primarily Masters' theses in various fields and some doctoral dissertations in the fields of Law or The Arts, from the 1980s to the present).
• University of Port Harcourt
• This website offers an extensive collection of popular and scholarly historical summaries, images from art exhibitions, current news and information about about the Urhobo Historical Society itself and about Urhobo communities in Nigeria and elsewhere, and related links. "[Founded in August 1999 in New York City] ...the supreme aim of Urhobo Historical Society is to create a movement that will promote the preservation of historical records and the writing of diverse historical experiences among Urhobos."
• Urhobo Historical Society Conferences (since 1999)
• West African Linguistic Society = Société de Linguistique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (via University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria) "WALS is a non-profitable association of academics, research workers, field workers and teachers drawn from the West African sub-region. These countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo...Currently we have members resident in North America (Canada and USA), European Union (France, Netherlands, Spain, UK etc)." --See also: Journal of West African languages. (Online): 1964 to present
• John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture & History (Lagos, Nigeria) A website --in English and in Yoruba -- for the newly-constructed arts center, museum, park, and swimming pool in Onikan, Lagos. ***Note: As of June 2022, the center and exhibition spaces are still under construction .
• Yoruba Diaspora (Prof. Henry B. Lovejoy, University of Colorado, Boulder) "Yorùbá Diaspora is a Catographcially Based Interactive Digital Archive (CBIDA), which is a series of annual maps that operates on a temporal scale. It is currently under development as there is much data and primary sources to upload...The project director, Henry B. Lovejoy, has compiled geo-referenced data and aligned it with slave voyage data to visualize the process whereby conflict provided captives who boarded slave ships destined for the Americas. The geographic scope of this project reflects an area which is part of southwestern Nigeria, as well as Benin and Togo... As more materials are added, the aim is to present the materials hosted herein alongside a traditional print publication tentatively called, The Collapse of Oyo and the Creation of the Yoruba: An Illustrative History ."
• Àkóye: Àkóyege Ède Yorùba Lóri Ero (African Studies Institute, University of Georgia, Athens) "...a multimedia course integrating the use of video, audio, and text. There will be three levels: elementary, intermediate, and advanced. The plan is to facilitate gradual learning of Yorùbá both in the traditional classroom and independently."
• Alaroye.org (Lagos, Nigeria)  Yoruba news website
• The British Library: "Early Yoruba Books at the BL and How to Find (Some of) Them Online," September 2, 2020 . A sian and African studies blog . (London, UK)
• United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Ìkéde Káríayé Fún É̟tó̟ O̟mo̟nìyàn Ò̟rò̟ Àkó̟so̟ . Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Yoruba -- Learn Yoruba Home Page (BIS BUS International, Ontario, Canada) This website offers a basic primer, with audio files and downloadable font; plus information on a publication Yoruba language learning = Yorùbá mõ ön kô, mõ ön ká to be ordered.
• Yoruba.Name.com (Lagos, Nigeria) A cultural dictionary of names, with meaning in English and related information .
• Yorùba Yé Mi: a beginning Yorùba textbook (University of Texas, Austin) Open access to grammar text and audio files. "...an interactive, communicative, introductory, multi-media program intended to provide college/university students with basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills of language learning in Yorùbá."

Related Resources

African Studies Virtual Library

Essay on Nigeria My Country

Students are often asked to write an essay on Nigeria My Country in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Nigeria My Country

Introduction to nigeria.

Nigeria is a country in West Africa. It is known for its rich culture and many languages. The land has forests, mountains, and rivers. Many people live in Nigeria, making it Africa’s most populated country.

Nigerian Culture

The culture in Nigeria is colorful. People enjoy music, dance, and art. They celebrate festivals with joy. Clothing is often bright and beautiful. Nigerian food is tasty and includes rice, soups, and spices.

Places in Nigeria

Nigeria has exciting places to see. There are big cities like Lagos and natural spots like the Zuma Rock. Visitors like to see the wildlife and markets too.

Nigeria faces some problems. Not all children can go to school, and keeping the environment clean is tough. Leaders are working to solve these issues.

Nigeria is a country with friendly people and a strong spirit. It is full of life and has a future full of promise. It is a place many call home with pride.

250 Words Essay on Nigeria My Country

Nigeria is a country in West Africa. It’s known for its colorful culture, rich history, and natural beauty. With over 200 million people, it’s the most populous country in Africa and the seventh in the world.

Land and Nature

The land in Nigeria is very diverse. There are sandy beaches, large rivers, and even forests. The country also has a lot of wildlife, including elephants and lions. Nigeria’s weather is mostly hot since it’s close to the equator, but it also has rainy and dry seasons.

Culture and People

Nigeria is home to many different groups of people. Each group has its own language, traditions, and festivals. Music and dance are very important in Nigerian culture. The country is famous for its Nollywood film industry, which is one of the largest in the world.

Nigeria has a lot of natural resources like oil and gas. These resources play a big role in its economy. Agriculture is also important; many people farm products like cocoa and peanuts.

Nigeria faces some challenges, such as making sure everyone has enough food and access to education. The country is working to solve these problems and make life better for its people.

Nigeria is a country with a lot of diversity and potential. Even though it has challenges, its rich culture and natural resources make it a unique and important part of the world.

500 Words Essay on Nigeria My Country

Nigeria is a country located in West Africa. It is known for its rich history, diverse cultures, and natural resources. With over 200 million people, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous in the world. The land is full of life and color, with many languages spoken and various traditions practiced.

Geography and Climate

The country has a varied landscape that includes beaches, mountains, forests, and deserts. The climate is tropical, with rainy and dry seasons that change depending on the area. The southern part of Nigeria is mostly wet and green, while the north can be hot and dry. This makes Nigeria home to a wide range of plants and animals, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

Nigeria’s culture is a tapestry of the many ethnic groups that live there. The country has over 250 ethnic groups, with the Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba being the largest. Each group has its own customs, language, and way of life. Music and dance are important in Nigerian culture, with traditional beats like Afrobeat and Highlife being popular. Nigerian movies, known as Nollywood, are famous across Africa and tell stories that reflect the lives of the people.

Nigerian food is as diverse as its people. Dishes are often made with rice, beans, and yams, and are seasoned with spices that make them flavorful. Some popular foods include jollof rice, a spicy dish made with tomatoes and rice, and suya, which is grilled meat with a tasty spice rub. These foods are not just tasty but also a way to bring people together, as meals are a time for family and friends to share stories and enjoy each other’s company.

Nigeria has a growing economy that is one of the largest in Africa. It is rich in resources like oil and natural gas, which are important for the country’s wealth. Agriculture is also a key part of the economy, with many people working in farming to grow crops like cocoa, peanuts, and palm oil. Nigeria’s markets are full of life, with people buying and selling goods every day.

Like any country, Nigeria faces challenges. Some areas have to deal with poverty and not having enough schools or hospitals. There are also times when different groups disagree, leading to conflict. Despite these issues, many Nigerians are working hard to make their country a better place, focusing on education, health, and peace.

Nigeria is a country with a heart full of rhythm and a spirit that shines. Its landscapes are breathtaking, its cultures are vibrant, and its people are strong and resilient. Even with the difficulties it faces, Nigeria continues to move forward, building a future that honors its rich past and looks ahead with hope. For many Nigerians, their homeland is more than just a place on the map—it is a part of who they are.

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18 Notable Essays From Nigeria in 2023

This year, it can be argued that the literary scene was lit by two categories of essays: those on Nigerian literature and others. 

By Editorial 

2023 has been a remarkable year for Nigerian essay writing. Coming on the back of the repeated lamentation of the deterioration of thinking culture in Nigeria — which has in turn meant a curious lack of important literary essays —2023 proved to be the vaunted year of the essay, if we were to give it a befitting label. Beginning from January till December, we were inundated with essays covering a wide range of public and private concerns in Nigeria. 

Considering the sheer number of essays produced this year, what especially comes across to us is the immense quality of the arguments and examinations of personal travails explored therein — a true testament to what Nigerian essayists of this generation are capable of. It barely needs notation that the genre of the essay was greatly enhanced by one major event this year: the publication of Oris Aigbokhaevbolo’s essay “The Death of Nigerian Literature”. That esteemed essay sparked what became a Renaissance of the critical essay in Nigeria. A flurry of intellectual ripostes followed suit on the question of whether or not Nigerian literature was dying; and also on the question of the perceived  Americanisation of Nigerian poetry. This spontaneous spring of arguments this year cast an undeniable glow on the literary scene.

The essays produced in 2023 can be divided into two distinct categories: those about Nigerian literature, and those focusing on personal and private narratives. The quality of these essays was truly outstanding and cannot be completely captured in a small list such as this. What we have compiled here, however, is a list of some of the literary essays which we think were notable in 2023, based on these categorisations.

“ The Death of Nigerian Literature ” 

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo 

Publisher: Efiko Magazine

This essay was a real conversation starter in the Nigerian literary scene this year. Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, who has a reputation for his controversial takes on African literature, argued that Nigerian literature is dead because there is no system left to support its writers, and it is difficult to tell what becomes of successful Nigerian writers, unlike their peers in America and Europe. The essay laments a generation of writers whose ambitions are either to head West or use their writing talents to get better positions in the corporate world.

“ Yes, Nigerian Literature is Dying. Here is Why ” 

By Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera 

Publisher: Author on Medium

This essay was a response which heightened the argument begun by Aigbokhaevbolo. Chukwudera argues that the present generation lacks the structure which aided the first generation of African writers, and the denial by the present generation of the problem heightens it. He argues that Nigerian literature is dying, so long as writers are failing to produce art which interrogates the status quo, and that people are growing less satisfied with the country. 

“ Is Nigerian Literature Truly Dying? ” 

By Chimezie Chika 

Publisher: Afrocritik

Chimezie Chika argues that the points raised by Aigbokhaevbolo and Chukwudera are valid, but counters the argument that Nigerian literature is dead because even in the grim state of things Nigerian Literature is still recording little successes.

“ Who is Afraid of Nigerian Literature? ” 

By Kechi Nomu 

Publisher: The Republic

Kechi Nomu highlights her personal experience with Nigerian literature as a reader and student. She accepts the guilt of being one of those who have left, so as to survive as artists, often to the detriment of the scene back home. But she argues in favour of the resilient spirit of Nigerian literature and its ability to endure.

(Read also – Examining Africa’s Literary Masterpieces: African Books That Should be Considered Modern Classics )

“ Our Literature Has Died Again: Nigerian Writing in the Era of Nomadists ” 

By Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

Publisher: Open Country 

Kanyinsola goes back in history and argues that the discourse on the death of Nigerian literature is an old one. He divides the writers who argue for Nigerian literature to be deeply rooted at home and those who travel into Nativists and Nomadists. And he argues that the multiplicity of Nomadists doesn’t spell doom for Nigerian literature.

“ Is Contemporary Nigerian Poetry Nigerian? ”

 By Ernest Ogunyemi 

Publisher: Author on Substack

Ogunyemi argues that Nigerian poetry has become monotonous, as a result of Nigerian poets drinking too much from the depressive faucets of the Plath-Lowell streams of American literature. He argues that Nigerian poets are failing with language, which has resulted in a drop in the quality of poetry in the country.

“ The Miseducation of Nigerian Poets ” 

By Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera

Publisher: The Republic 

Chukwudera argues that Nigerian poets made significant poetry in the social media age, but poets are now engaged in a choreography of styles and themes since American magazines became very important to Nigerian poets. He argues that the problem isn’t as much the influence of American magazines as it is the lack of consciousness among Nigerian poets which makes them easily swayed.

“ Much Ado About Nigerian Criticism ” 

By Bestman Michael Osamudiamen

Publisher: Afapinen

From a Marxist point of view, this essay contributes to the discussion about the state of Nigerian literature and poets. It examines the earlier arguments made by Aigbokhaevbolo, Ogunyemi, Chukwudera, and Chika, and then presents its arguments through the lens of class.

“ Tender Light ”

By Emmanuel Iduma 

Publisher: Yale Review

Emmanuel Iduma, in this essay, reflects on the relationship between photography and narration, using a case study of how he once tried but failed to write a short story about how a pastor loses faith after seeing a picture, which caused an instantaneous change in his mindset. The essay explores how narratives work with photography; how the ideas expressed in photographs can be expressed either in long or short form, and the factors responsible for how the ideas can be expressed.

(Read also – African Art: Discovering the Beauty, Symbolism, and Diversity of Traditional and Contemporary Masterpieces )

“ Spirit Wife, Spirit Life ” 

By Chimezie Chika

Publisher: Efiko Magazine 

Chika’s essay examines the supernatural aspects of his life and his encounter with the spirit forces that interfere with his physical world. It is a very vulnerable and courageous essay which opened up a whole discussion on Igbo cosmology and worldview.

“ Leave Me, Let Me Live ” 

By Chinonso Nzeh 

Publisher: Evergreen Review

Chinonso Nzeh paints a touching portrait of his struggles as a gay boy growing up in Nigeria, his struggles to be himself in a society that is opposed to his sexuality, and his resilience in the face of this rejection.

“ The Exceptional Mind of Cyprian Ekwensi ” 

The essay explores Cyprian Ekwensi’s vocation as a custodian of Nigerian life and as the patron saint of the city dweller, and how his work in this context made him one of the popular novelists of his generation.

“Winning the James Currey Prize Might Represent My Coming of Age as a Writer”: In Conversation with 2023 Prizewinner, Peter Ngila Njeri

“ The Utility of Speculative Fiction ” 

By T.J Benson

Publisher: Efiko

T.J. Benson makes a case for the relevance of speculative fiction in everyday Nigerian life. He argues that speculative fiction is not fiction that deals with a different kind of reality, but one which reimagines reality. As a writer of speculative fiction, he asserts that the genre is his way of seeking wonder, which is one of his most important preoccupations with fiction.

“ Living in America, Leaving Nigeria ”  

By Idowu Odeyemi 

Idowu Odeyemi, a PhD student at the University of Colorado in the US, details his experience with racism in the country. His essay illustrates how racism in America is no longer pronounced but is more subtle, one which makes one question the relevance of their personhood.

“ Teach Me So I Don’t Wither ” 

By Halima Adisa 

Publisher: Lolwe

This essay is a reflection of philosophical heft in which the author writes about her lifelong journey of learning to stand up and tell the truth, and to fight for herself. 

(Read also:  Afrocritik’s 2023 Top 25 African Music Projects )

“ Accent and the Melting Pot ”

By Chinonyelum Anyichie 

Publisher: Isele 

This is an essay which reflects on the immigrant struggles with accents in America. Anyichie, an Igbo immigrant to America, writes from the perspective of her experiences and observations about how accents pose a challenge to immigrants in a world where people from different cultures migrate, and in a land with its problems. 

“ How to Speak of a Miracle ” 

By Joshua Chizoma

Joshua Chizoma’s story reflects on one of his elder sister’s struggles in her marital life, to which he was an accomplice. It follows how there was nothing to it at first, until the problem became apparent. “I could have asked her and she would tell me”, Chizoma wrote. But he never does,  as a way of preserving a blind-ended hope, until he accidentally chanced on a note of prayer written by his sister on this problem. The story continues on an inspiring trajectory, through a Christian lens of how problems come to a resolution. 

“ Chick Lit Offers More Than It Is Credited For, Beyond The Romance, Heartstrings, and Laughter ” 

By Joy Chukwujindu 

In a year when the discussion about Chick Lit and genre literature remaining in the margin in Nigerian literature has continued, Joy Chukwujindu argues that Chick Lit deserves more recognition than it gets.

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Afrocritik Monthly Editorial Playlist: February 2024

Tomilola Coco Adeyemo is Rekindling the Romance Genre in African Literature

Chick Lit Offers More Than It is Credited For, Beyond the Romance, Heartstrings, and Laughter

15 Writers of African Descent Longlisted for the UK 2023 Diverse Book Awards

Afrocritik Weekly Music Spotlight: Monthly Editorial Update  

Afrocritik Announces Plans to Launch Bi-annual Afrocritik Magazine  

© 2024 Afrocritik.com. All Rights Reserved.

Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Death — Death In Nigerian Culture

Death in Nigerian Culture

• Categories: Death Religious Beliefs Tradition

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Words: 1627 |

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1627 | Pages: 4 | 9 min read

About Death and Religious Beliefs

Yoruba traditional belief.

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