Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Colonial Era
The first contact between the Yoruba empires and the Europeans was made in the 15th
century, when the Portuguese began trading in pepper and, later, slaves. In contrast, the
northern Islamic states remained untouched by European influence until well into the 19th
century.
In the early 19th century, the British took a lead in suppressing slavery along the Niger
delta, leading to the annexation of Lagos port - a first colonial toehold. This led to further
annexation to thwart the French, who were advancing their territory along the Niger River.
By the beginning of the 20th century, British soldiers had advanced as far north as the cit-
ies of Kano and Sokoto, where Islamic revivalism had created a rapidly expanding ca-
liphate.
Nigeria was divided in two - the southern, mainly Christian, colony and the northern
Islamic protectorate. The British chose to rule indirectly through local kings and chiefs,
exacerbating ethnic divisions for political expediency.
Military Misrule
These divisions came back to haunt Nigeria when independence came in October 1960.
Politics split along ethnic lines, and in 1966 a group of Igbo army officers staged a coup.
General Johnson Ironsi took over as head of state. Another coup quickly followed on its
heels, along with massacres of Igbos, which in 1967 provoked civil war by secessionist
Igbos.
The war dragged on for three years. Biafra was blockaded, and by the time its forces
capitulated in 1970, up to a million Igbos had died, mainly from starvation.
An oil boom smoothed Nigeria's path to national reconciliation, but as the army jock-
eyed for political control, the next two decades were marked by a series of military coups,
with only a brief democratic interlude in the early 1980s. When General Ibrahim Ba-
bangida offered elections in 1993, he annulled them when the result appeared to go
against him, only to be toppled in a coup soon after by General Sani Abacha.
Abacha was ruthless, purging the army and locking up intellectuals, unionists and pro-
democracy activists. His rule reached a nadir in 1995 with the judicial murder of the
Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, an act that led to Nigeria's expulsion from the Common-
wealth.
Salvation finally came in June 1998, in what Nigerians called the 'coup from heaven'.
Aged 54, and worth somewhere between US$2 billion and US$5 billion in stolen govern-
ment money, Abacha died of a heart attack while in the company of two prostitutes. His
