Nigeria
Name
| Official name | Federal Republic of Nigeria |
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| Former names | The Federation of Nigeria (1960–63); the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (1914–60), the Northern and Southern Nigeria Protectorates (1900–14), the Niger Coast and Oil Rivers Protectorates, the Royal Niger Company's territories and the Colony of Lagos (1861); the kingdoms and caliphates of Benin, Oyo, Ife, Bornu and Sokoto; the Republic of Biafra of the secession of 1967–70 |
| Demonym | Nigerian — Naija in the street |
| Meaning of the name | "Niger-area" — the name Flora Shaw proposed in The Times of 8 January 1897 for the Niger Company's lands, adopted for the amalgamated colony of 1914; the river's name from the Tuareg gher n gheren, "river of rivers," by the usual reading, not the Latin for black; "the Giant of Africa" |
| Motto | "Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress" — on the arms since 1978, "Unity and Faith" alone before |
Quick facts
| Capital | Abuja — the planned capital of the Federal Capital Territory, chosen 1976 and the seat of government since 12 December 1991; about 4 million; the fastest-growing city of Africa |
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| Largest cities | Lagos, about 17 million by the state's count and 15 by the UN's, the largest city of Africa by some counts and the commercial capital; Kano, about 4 million, the Hausa city of the emirate and the old caravans; Ibadan, the Yoruba city of the largest area in West Africa; Abuja; Port Harcourt of the oil; Benin City of the bronzes; Kaduna; Onitsha of the market on the Niger, the largest in West Africa; Aba; Jos; Maiduguri of the insurgency; Enugu of the coal; Zaria; Ilorin; Warri |
| Official language | English — the language of the state, the courts, the schools and the Constitution, the Nigerian English of "no wahala"; Nigerian Pidgin the lingua franca of perhaps 100 million; Hausa of the north, Yoruba of the southwest and Igbo of the southeast the three national languages by the Constitution's use; Fulfulde, Kanuri, Tiv, Efik-Ibibio, Edo, Ijaw, Nupe, Urhobo and the rest of some 520 languages, the third-most of any country |
| Currency | Naira — NGN, ₦; 100 kobo; since 1 January 1973; about 1,500 to the U.S. dollar since the float of June 2023 |
| Time zone | West Africa Time, UTC+1; no summer time |
| Calling code | +234 |
| Internet domain | .ng |
| ISO 3166 codes | NG · NGA · 566 |
| Vehicle registration code | WAN |
| Driving side | Right — since 2 April 1972 |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types D and G |
| Independence | 1 October 1960, from the United Kingdom — Abubakar Tafawa Balewa prime minister and Nnamdi Azikiwe governor-general and then, on 1 October 1963, the first president of the republic; the amalgamation of 1 January 1914 the country's birth, the colony's constitutions of 1946, 1951 and 1954 the road |
| National days | 1 October, Independence Day; 12 June, Democracy Day, for the election of 1993 that the generals annulled, moved from 29 May in 2018; 1 May, Workers' Day; 1 January; Good Friday and Easter Monday; Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Kabir of two days each, the Prophet's birthday; 25 and 26 December; the Armed Forces Remembrance Day of 15 January for the end of the civil war; the Durbars of Kano and Katsina at the Eids, the Argungu fishing festival, the Osun-Osogbo of August, the Eyo of Lagos |
| Constitution | 29 May 1999 — the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promulgated by the last military government as it left, the charter of the Fourth Republic: a federal presidential republic on the American model, the president elected for four years and two terms by a majority with a quarter of the vote in two-thirds of the states, the National Assembly of the Senate and the House, the Supreme Court, the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, the "federal character" of the appointments, the Sharia of the northern states' courts within it; amended in 2010, 2011, 2018 for the "not too young to run" and 2023 for the states' railways and power; the Constitutions of 1963, 1979 and 1989 before; the ninth, tenth and the Fifth Republic of the reviews that never come |
| Population | 140,431,790 at the census of 21 March 2006, the last held, the census of 2023 postponed; about 237 million (UN, 2026 est.) — the most populous country of Africa, the sixth of the world, the third by 2050 |
| Area | 923,768 km² (356,669 sq mi) — land 910,768 km², water 13,000 km²; the thirty-second-largest |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | Three vertical bands of green, white and green — the green for the forests, the farms and the wealth of the land, the white for peace and unity; the design of Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi, a 23-year-old student of Ibadan at a London college, chosen from 2,870 entries in the competition of 1959, its red sun of the original struck out by the judges; raised at midnight on 1 October 1960 at the Lagos Race Course as the Union Jack came down, the designer's prize £100 and, fifty years on, a national honor and a pension.Flag of Nigeria |
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| Coat of arms | A black shield with a wavy white pall for the Niger and the Benue meeting on the fertile black soil, an eagle of strength on a wreath of the national colors above, two white horses of dignity holding it, standing on a mound of green grass with the yellow trumpet flowers of Costus spectabilis, the national flower, and the scroll "Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress"; adopted 20 May 1960 and revised 1978 |
| National anthem | "Nigeria, We Hail Thee" — the anthem of independence, the words of the British expatriate Lillian Jean Williams and the music of Frances Berda of 1959, restored on 29 May 2024, the first anniversary of Tinubu's inauguration, in place of "Arise, O Compatriots" of 1978, the anthem the soldiers' government wrote, "the good old days," the president said, "a colonial relic," the critics; "Nigeria, we hail thee, our own dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand" |
| National motto | "Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress" |
| National colors | Green and white |
| National animal | The eagle of the arms, the Super Eagles of the football; the black-crowned crane the national bird; the Cross River gorilla of the last 300, the drill, the Niger Delta red colobus and the forest elephants of Omo; widely cited |
| National flower | Costus spectabilis — the yellow trumpet of the arms, the ginger lily that grows across the country; declared with the arms |
| National dish | Jollof rice — the tomato rice of every party, the "jollof wars" with Ghana and Senegal the continent's argument; pounded yam with egusi melon soup, the eba of the cassava with the okra and the ogbono, the amala and ewedu of the Yoruba, the tuwo of the north; suya, the spiced beef skewers of the Hausa nights; moi moi and akara of the beans, the puff-puff, the pepper soup, the Nkwobi of the Igbo; the palm wine and the Chapman; the zobo of the hibiscus; widely cited |
| National sport | Football — the Super Eagles of the Cups of Nations of 1980, 1994 and 2013, the Olympic gold of Atlanta 1996, the first of Africa, the six World Cups since 1994 and the one missed in 2026, the Super Falcons of ten women's African titles, the last in 2024; the athletics of Tobi Amusan's world record of the hurdles of 2022 and Chioma Ajunwa's long jump gold of 1996; the boxing, the wrestling, the basketball of D'Tigress, the champions of Africa five times; the Nollywood of the fans; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag by the act of 1960; the arms and the flower by the act of 1960 and the revision of 1978; the anthem by the act of 29 May 2024; the animals, dishes and sports widely cited |
Geography
| Location | West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea — Benin to the west, Niger to the north, Chad at the northeast corner on the lake, Cameroon to the east; the Niger and the Benue through the middle to the delta; the Sahel of the north and the rain forest of the south; the "Giant of Africa" at the bend of the continent |
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| Land borders | 4,477 km (2,782 mi) with four neighbors — Cameroon 1,975, the Bakassi peninsula ceded to it by the ICJ ruling of 2002 and the handover of 2008; Niger 1,608, the Hausa border of the trade and the smugglers, the coup quarrel of 2023, the border reopened 2024; Benin 809, the Seme border of the cars and the rice, closed by Nigeria in 2019–20; Chad 85 across the lake; the Lakurawa and Mahmuda militants of the northwest borders |
| Coastline | 853 km (530 mi) — the lagoons of Lagos and Lekki, the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Bonny, the Niger Delta of the mangroves, the largest of Africa, the oil terminals of Bonny, Forcados and Escravos, the Calabar estuary; the Lekki deep port of 2023; the piracy of the Gulf of Guinea, the worst in the world in 2020 and fallen since |
| Highest point | Chappal Waddi, 2,419 m (7,936 ft), on the Mambilla Plateau in Taraba State at the Cameroonian border |
| Lowest point | The Atlantic Ocean, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 380 m (1,247 ft) |
| Rivers | The Niger, 4,180 km in all and 1,175 through the country from the Benin border past the Kainji dam, Jebba and Lokoja to the delta of the nine outlets, the Nun and the Forcados, the third river of Africa; the Benue, 1,400 km from Cameroon's Adamawa to the confluence at Lokoja, the "mother of waters"; the Kaduna, the Sokoto, the Gongola, the Hadejia of the north; the Cross of the Calabar estuary; the Ogun of Lagos, the Osun of the sacred grove, the Imo and the Anambra; the Yobe to Lake Chad; the delta's creeks |
| Lakes | Lake Chad at the northeast corner, the Nigerian share of the lake of 25,000 km² of 1963 that is 1,500 now, the fishermen of Baga and the islands of Boko Haram; Kainji, the reservoir of the dam of 1968 on the Niger, 1,270 km², the largest; Jebba and Shiroro of the dams; Oguta of the Igbo, the blue lake; the Tiga of Kano; the Alau dam of Maiduguri that burst on 10 September 2024 and flooded the city; the Bakolori |
| Terrain | The coastal plain and the delta of the south, the mangroves and the swamp forest; the rain forest belt of the Yoruba and Igbo lands and the Cross River hills; the plateaus of the middle, the Jos Plateau at 1,200 m of the tin and the cool, the Mambilla of the tea and the highest ground, the Adamawa highlands; the savanna of the north, the Guinea and the Sudan, the Sahel of the Sokoto and Borno plains; the inselbergs of Zuma, Olumo and Aso Rock; the Chad basin |
| Climate | Equatorial in the south with 2,000 to 4,000 mm of rain and two wet seasons, Lagos at 27°C all year; tropical in the middle with 1,200 mm; arid in the north with 500 and the Sahel's 300, Maiduguri at 40°C in April; the harmattan of the Saharan dust from November to February; the desertification of the north; the rains of the 2020s heavier and the floods |
| Natural hazards | Floods — the floods of 2022 over 33 states with more than 600 dead and 1.4 million displaced, the worst in a decade, the Mokwa flood of 29 May 2025 in Niger State with more than 200 dead, the Alau dam collapse of 10 September 2024 that put Maiduguri under water; the droughts of the Sahel and the Lake Chad; the harmattan; the landslides of the plateaus; the oil spills of the delta, 13 million barrels since 1958 by the estimates, the Ogoniland of Shell and the cleanup; the building collapses of Lagos, nine dead on 23 June 2026; the road crashes of every week, 30 dead in Kano on 8 February 2026; the cholera of Borno of 2026 with 74 dead; the gas explosion of the Plateau lead mine of 18 February 2026 with 38 dead; the war of the north |
| Natural resources | Oil — the reserves of 37 billion barrels, the second of Africa, the production of about 1.6 million barrels a day, the largest of the continent in most years, the delta's Bonny Light; natural gas — 200 trillion cubic feet, the largest reserves of Africa, the NLNG of Bonny; tin and columbite of the Jos Plateau, the coal of Enugu, the iron ore of Itakpe, the limestone of the cement, the lead and zinc, the gold of Zamfara and the bandits, the lithium of the rush of 2024–26, the bitumen of Ondo, the barite; the arable land of the largest cassava and yam harvests in the world; the cocoa of the west; the fish |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 78%, the arable 37% of the country, the highest share of any large country; forest about 7% and falling, the fastest deforestation of the decade |
| National parks | 7 national parks — Gashaka-Gumti of 6,700 km², the largest, of the Mambilla and the chimpanzees; Yankari of Bauchi of 1956, the elephants and the Wikki warm spring; Cross River of the gorillas, the drills and the Obudu plateau; Kainji Lake; Old Oyo of the empire's ruins; Chad Basin, lost to the insurgents; Kamuku; Okomu of the last rain forest of Edo; the Lekki conservation center of Lagos; the game reserves of Yankari's neighbors; about 3% of the land |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 2 — the Sukur Cultural Landscape (1999), the terraced hills and the chief's palace of the Mandara mountains of Adamawa, the first African cultural landscape listed and burned by Boko Haram in 2014; the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove (2005), the forest of the river goddess with the shrines of Susanne Wenger, the festival of August; the Ifa divination (2008), the Ijele masquerade (2009), the Argungu fishing festival (2016), the Kwagh-hir theater (2019) and the Sango festival (2023) on the intangible list; the Benin walls, the Nok, the Oban hills and the Gashaka on the tentative |
| Administrative divisions | 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja — from Abia to Zamfara, grouped in the six geopolitical zones of the North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East and South South of the "federal character"; 774 local government areas, their autonomy of finance ruled by the Supreme Court on 11 July 2024; the 12 northern states of the Sharia courts since 2000; the emirates, the kingdoms and the chieftaincies of the traditional rulers, the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano, the Ooni of Ife, the Oba of Benin |
People
| Population | 140,431,790 (census of 2006); about 237 million (2026 est.) |
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| Population density | About 250 per km² (650 per sq mi) — Lagos State at 7,000, the Sahel at 100 |
| Population growth | About 2.1% a year — five million more Nigerians every year, the 400 million of 2050 by the projections, the third country of the world by then |
| Median age | About 18 years |
| Life expectancy | About 55 years by the WHO's count and 62 by the Factbook's — among the lowest in the world |
| Fertility rate | About 4.5 births per woman, from 6.4 in 1990 — seven in the northwest, four in the south |
| Urban population | About 55% |
| Adult literacy | About 62% — the north far behind the south, the 20 million children out of school the world's largest number |
| Ethnic groups | Hausa about 30% with the Fulani about 6%, the Muslim north of the emirates and the Sokoto caliphate, the largest group; Yoruba about 15.5%, the southwest of Lagos, Ibadan and Ife, the kingdoms of Oyo and the Oba; Igbo about 15%, the southeast of Enugu, Onitsha and Aba, the traders of every city and the Biafra of 1967; Ijaw about 2%, the delta; Kanuri about 2.5%, the Bornu of the northeast; Tiv about 2.5%, the Benue; Ibibio about 2%, Edo, Nupe, Urhobo, Igala, Idoma, Ebira, the Efik, the Jukun, the Gwari, the Berom of Jos — more than 250 groups by the count (the estimates of the Factbook; no census by ethnicity since 1963); the Lebanese, Indians and Chinese of the commerce |
| Languages | English by most as the second language and the elite's first; Nigerian Pidgin by perhaps half the country as the street's tongue, the BBC's service in it since 2017; Hausa by 60 million as the first or second language, the lingua franca of the north and the Sahel; Yoruba by 45 million; Igbo by 30 million; Fulfulde, Kanuri, Tiv, Ibibio, Edo, Ijaw and the 520 in all, the Afroasiatic, Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan families all present; Arabic of the Quranic schools; the languages dying at one a decade |
| Religion | Muslim about 53% by the surveys — the Sunni of the Maliki school of the north and the Yoruba Muslims of the southwest, the Sultan of Sokoto the leader, the Sufi brotherhoods, the Izala reformers, the Sharia courts of the 12 states since 1999–2000 and the hisbah police of Kano who arrested nine for eating in Ramadan on 19 February 2026, the Shia of Zaria and the Boko Haram of the rejection; Christian about 46% — the Catholics of the Igbo, the Anglicans of the largest province in the Communion, the Pentecostal megachurches of the Redeemed, the Winners' and the Dunamis of the 100,000 seats, the Middle Belt's churches of the herder wars; the traditional religions of the Ifa and the masquerades under both; the American designation of 31 October 2025 of a "country of particular concern" for the killing of Christians, the government's "no religious persecution" and the interfaith accord of 50 leaders of 12 August 2026 (the estimates of the Pew and the surveys; no census by religion since 1963) |
| Human Development Index | 0.560 (2023 data, 2025 report) — medium; about 164th of 193 |
| The poverty and the hunger | About 46% of the people below the international poverty line by the World Bank's count of 2024, 129 million, the largest number of the extremely poor of any country after India; the 20 million children out of school; the malnutrition of the northeast and the northwest, the cholera; the hunger protests of 1–10 August 2024, "End Bad Governance," with the dozens shot in the north; the inflation of 35% at the end of 2024 that halved the wages, the minimum wage of ₦70,000 a month of July 2024 about US$45; the "japa" of the professionals, the 12,000 doctors gone; the 2.1 million displaced by the war of the northeast and the millions of the northwest |
| Sport | Football — the Super Eagles of the Cups of Nations of 1980, 1994 and 2013, the final of 2024 lost to Ivory Coast and the third place of 17 January 2026 won on penalties over Egypt at Casablanca, the World Cup of 2026 missed on penalties to DR Congo in the playoff of 16 November 2025 with the coach's "voodoo" complaint, the Olympic gold of 1996 of Kanu and Okocha, Rashidi Yekini, Victor Osimhen of the Serie A title, the "Dream Team"; the Super Falcons of ten Women's Africa Cups and the World Cup of 2023's round of 16, Asisat Oshoala; D'Tigress of the five AfroBaskets and the Olympic quarterfinal of 2024; Tobi Amusan's 12.12 of the 100 m hurdles of 2022; the Olympics of 1996 with two golds and none since 2008; the boxing of Anthony Joshua of Nigerian parents; the Commonwealth Games of Glasgow 2026; the wrestling of Blessing Oborududu; the Nigeria Premier Football League |
| Diaspora | About 17 million people of Nigerian birth or descent abroad — the United States of 750,000 and more, the most educated immigrant group of the country by the census, the United Kingdom of 300,000 and the doctors and nurses of the NHS, Canada, Ghana, South Africa of the xenophobic attacks and the 1,490 evacuated on 16 July 2026, the Gulf, Italy and Germany of the boats; the "japa" wave of the 2020s; the remittances of about US$20 billion a year, the largest of Africa; the Afrobeats and the Nollywood of the diaspora's culture; the Nigerian Americans of the Silicon Valley and the football |
Government
| Form of government | Federal presidential republic under the Constitution of 1999 — the president elected by the people for four years and two terms as head of state and government and commander of the forces, the vice president on the ticket, the Federal Executive Council of ministers from every state; the National Assembly of the Senate of 109 and the House of 360; the Supreme Court; the 36 states with governors and assemblies; the two-party dominance of the APC and the PDP become the one-party fear of the defections of 2025; "partly free" by Freedom House |
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| President | Bola Ahmed Tinubu (All Progressives Congress — APC), since 29 May 2023 — the sixteenth head of state and the fifth elected president of the Fourth Republic; born 29 March 1952 at Lagos, an accountant of Chicago State University, the Mobil treasurer, the senator of 1992–93 whose seat the coup of 1993 took, the exile of the NADECO democracy movement of the Abacha years, the governor of Lagos of 1999–2007 who built the state's revenue and its political machine, the "Jagaban," the founder of the APC of 2013 that made Buhari president and the kingmaker who took the crown himself, "Emi lokan," "it is my turn," his campaign's cry; elected 25 February 2023 with 36.6% and 8.8 million votes, the lowest share of any Nigerian president, on a turnout of 26.7%, the lowest ever, the result the Supreme Court upheld on 26 October 2023; the reformer of the first day, "the fuel subsidy is gone," 29 May 2023, the naira floated in June, the tax acts of 26 June 2025 in force from 1 January 2026, the student loans and the ₦70,000 wage; the illnesses and the absences, the Chicago court's release of the records of the drug-money forfeiture of 1993 that his campaign called a settled matter; renominated by the APC in May 2026, "the price of long-term reform," his case, "I acknowledge the frustration," 25 May 2026; Kashim Shettima the vice president, the former Borno governor |
| The election of 16 January 2027 | The presidential and National Assembly elections set by the Independent National Electoral Commission for Saturday, 16 January 2027, the earliest in the Fourth Republic, the governors of most states on 6 February 2027 — the campaign open since 19 August 2026: Tinubu and Shettima for the APC on the reforms, the inflation "coming down" and the roads; Atiku Abubakar of Adamawa, the vice president of 1999–2007 and the candidate of every election since, 79 years old, for the African Democratic Congress with Rotimi Amaechi, the former Rivers governor and transport minister, "the unprecedented thievery" of the government his charge; Peter Obi of Anambra, the Labour Party candidate of 2023 who took the third of the votes and the cities, for the Nigeria Democratic Congress with Rabiu Kwankwaso, the Kano strongman of the NNPP of 2023, the "Obidients" of the young his base; Sandy Onor of Cross River for the People's Democratic Party, the party of sixteen years reduced to a shell by the defections of its governors to the APC in 2025; the coalition of Atiku, Obi, El-Rufai and Amaechi under the ADC of July 2025 with David Mark as chairman, its pledge of September 2025 to back its primary's winner, and its split of May 2026 when Obi left for his own vehicle, "Tinubu is coming back without much struggle," an ADC organizer wrote; the Federal High Court's order of 15 June 2026 to deregister the ADC and four other parties for the failed performance test of the Constitution, contested and unresolved on the commission's timetable; the bags of rice of the northern campaign and the media tours; "the APC's structural advantage is not popularity, but organisation"; the kidnappings and the cost of living the questions; the result the next page |
| The 2023 election | Held 25 February 2023 for the presidency and the National Assembly, with the governors on 18 March: Tinubu 36.6% and 8,794,726 votes; Atiku Abubakar of the PDP 29.1%; Peter Obi of the Labour Party 25.4% and 6.1 million, the "Obidient" surge of the young, Lagos and the southeast won; Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP 6.4% and Kano; turnout 26.7% of the 93 million registered, the lowest since 1999; the BVAS machines and the results portal that failed on the night, the tribunal and the Supreme Court that upheld the count on 26 October 2023, the opposition's "stolen" and the observers' "flawed"; the Senate of 109 with the APC's 59 and the House of 360 with its 176 of the 2023 count, grown by the defections since |
| Parliament | The National Assembly at Abuja — the Senate of 109, three from each state and one from the capital territory, Godswill Akpabio (APC) its president since 13 June 2023, the former Akwa Ibom governor of the harassment complaint of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of 2025 that the Senate suspended her for; the House of Representatives of 360 from the constituencies, Tajudeen Abbas (APC) the Speaker; both elected for four years, the APC's majorities swollen by the crossings of the PDP and Labour members of 2024–26; the tenth Assembly; the "rubber stamp" of the opposition's charge |
| The next election | The presidential and legislative elections of 16 January 2027 and the governorships of 6 February 2027; the Ekiti governorship of 20 June 2026 and the Osun of 15 August 2026 the off-cycle votes of the year |
| The war in the north | Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province of the northeast since the uprising of July 2009 — the 40,000 dead and the 2 million displaced of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the Chibok girls of 14 April 2014, the drones of ISWAP that hit the Sabon Gari base on 29 January 2026, the Ngoshe abduction of about 300 on 6 March 2026, the Maiduguri bombings of 16 March with 23 dead, the Buni Yadi attack of 16 May with 17 police trainees dead, the 360 hostages freed in the Mandara mountains on 7 June, the 386 militants convicted in the mass trials of 11 April 2026; the "bandits" of the northwest, the kidnapping gangs of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Kebbi of the forests and the ransoms, the Papiri school of 21 November 2025 with 315 pupils and staff taken and freed, the Kurmin Wali churches of 18 January 2026 with 177 abducted, the Kwara villages of 4 February 2026 with 162 dead, the Lakurawa and the Mahmuda of the Niger and Benin borders, the Gummi operation of 8–9 July 2026 with 300 bandits killed by the army's count; the herder–farmer war of the Middle Belt, the Yelwata massacre of 13–14 June 2025 with 150 dead in Benue and the nine charged on 2 February 2026, the Bokkos Christmas of 2023 with 200, the Plateau of every month; the airstrikes of the air force on the wrong targets, the Jilli market of 11 April 2026 with more than 100 dead and Tumfa of 10 May with 72, "misfires" by the authorities; the IPOB of the southeast and Nnamdi Kanu's life sentence of 20 November 2025; the delta's militants quiet under the amnesty of 2009 |
| The Americans | The designation of Nigeria as a "country of particular concern" for religious freedom by the U.S. State Department on 31 October 2025 over the killing of Christians, the president's threat of 1 November to go in "guns-a-blazing" and the government's "Nigeria is not a religiously intolerant country"; the American airstrikes on Islamic State camps in Sokoto State on Christmas Day 2025 at the government's invitation, the "Christmas strikes"; the 100 U.S. soldiers sent on 16 February 2026 for training and intelligence and withdrawn by 3 July after the operation of 15–16 May that killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second in command of the Islamic State worldwide, in his compound of the Lake Chad basin, "American and Nigerian forces," the two presidents said; the 12.5% tariff of 24 July 2026 on the "forced labor" grounds; China's zero tariff of 1 May 2026 the other pole |
| The states and the emergency | The Rivers State crisis — the feud of Governor Siminalayi Fubara with his predecessor Nyesom Wike, the minister of the capital, the assembly's impeachment moves and the pipeline sabotage, the state of emergency Tinubu declared on 18 March 2025 with the governor, his deputy and the assembly suspended for six months and a retired admiral as administrator, the constitutionality the lawyers doubted, the emergency lifted on 18 September 2025; the Kano emirate quarrel of the two emirs of 2024–25; the governors' defections to the APC of 2025, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Enugu and the rest, the PDP's collapse; the Ekiti and Osun elections of 2026; the local governments' money freed by the Supreme Court of 11 July 2024 |
| Legal system | Common law of the English inheritance, the Sharia of the 12 northern states in the personal and, since 2000, the criminal law of the Muslims, and the customary courts — the Supreme Court of Abuja under Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun since 2024, the Court of Appeal, the Federal High Court of the terrorism trials; the death penalty by hanging and by the Sharia courts, the four sentenced to death on 3 June 2026 for the Owo church massacre of 2022, the executions rare; the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 with its 14 years; the EFCC of the corruption cases, the former power minister Mamman sentenced to 75 years on 13 May 2026 and arrested on the run; the Iva Valley judgment of 6 February 2026 of the Enugu court ordering Britain to pay £420 million for the 21 miners of 1949; the meth cartel of Ogun of the 2.4 tons of 21 May 2026; the Twitter ban of 2021; the #EndSARS police killings of 20 October 2020 at Lekki |
| Local government | 36 state governors elected for four years, the APC's about 30 after the crossings of 2025–26; the state houses of assembly; 774 local government chairmen and councils, the elections of the state commissions the ruling parties win whole; the traditional rulers of the emirates and the kingdoms, the Sultan of Sokoto Sa'ad Abubakar, the Emir of Kano of the restored Sanusi and the rival, the Ooni of Ife, the Alaafin, the Oba of Benin, the Obi of Onitsha, the Tor Tiv; the Lagos of Governor Sanwo-Olu's state of 17 million |
| Defense | The Nigerian Armed Forces of about 230,000, the largest of West Africa — the army of the northeast and the northwest, the air force of the Chinese drones and the Super Tucanos of the American sale, the navy of the Gulf of Guinea and the oil theft; the defense budget raised to a record in 2026, the "unprecedented amounts" of Foreign Policy's count, the reforms of the chiefs; the Multinational Joint Task Force of Lake Chad; the ECOWAS standby force that did not march on Niamey; the peacekeepers of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Darfur, the largest African contributor of the 1990s; the civilian tolls of the airstrikes; no conscription; the American trainers of 2026 gone |
| Foreign policy | The "giant" of West Africa and the pillar of ECOWAS, its chair under Tinubu of 2023–25 who threatened Niger's junta with force and did not use it, the three Sahel states gone from the bloc in 2025; the United States of the strikes, the tariff, the designation and the diaspora; Britain of the migration and security deal of 19 March 2026 with the £746 million for the Lagos ports; China of the railways, the loans and the tariff-free trade of 2026; the BRICS partner since January 2025; the oil buyers of India, Spain and the Netherlands; the Niger of the border and the pipeline accusations; the Cameroon of Bakassi; the Benin of the Seme border; the South Africa of the xenophobia and the evacuations; the African Union and the Lake Chad commission; the Abuja of the ECOWAS secretariat |
| United Nations | Member since 7 October 1960; the Security Council seats of 1966–67, 1978–79, 1994–95, 2010–11 and 2014–15; the peacekeeping tradition; the UN house of Abuja bombed on 26 August 2011 by Boko Haram; the humanitarian appeals of the northeast |
| Other memberships | ECOWAS (1975), its headquarters at Abuja; the African Union; OPEC (1971); the Commonwealth (1960), suspended 1995–99; the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (1986); the Non-Aligned Movement; the WTO (1995); the BRICS as a partner (2025); the Gulf of Guinea Commission; the Lake Chad Basin Commission; the D-8 of the Muslim economies; the African Continental Free Trade Area |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$250 billion (2025, IMF) — after the rebasing of July 2025 that raised the count of 2024 by a third to ₦372 trillion, the fourth economy of Africa after South Africa, Egypt and Algeria and the first by its own claim of the 2014 rebasing |
|---|---|
| GDP per capita | About US$1,050 (2025) — halved in dollars by the devaluation from the US$2,400 of 2022 |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$7,500 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 3.4% in 2024 and 4% in 2025, about 4.5% expected in 2026 on the oil, the services and the reforms' investors; inflation about 15% in 2026 by the rebased index from the 34.8% of December 2024, the highest in 28 years; the naira at about 1,500 to the dollar since the float of June 2023, from 460; the reserves above US$40 billion; the Eurobond return of December 2024; "improved investor confidence and stronger portfolio inflows," Oxford Economics; the unemployment of 4.3% by the new count and the underemployment of the many |
| Economy by sector | Services about 55%, the trade, the telecoms, the finance and the films; industry about 22%, the oil and gas about 5% of the output and 90% of the export earnings; agriculture about 23% and a third of the workers |
| Currency | Naira (NGN) |
| Oil and gas | About 1.6 million barrels a day from the delta and the offshore, the OPEC quota of 1.5 million met again in 2025 after the theft of the pipelines and the vandals cut it to a million in 2022; the reserves of 37 billion barrels and the Bonny Light of the buyers of India, Spain, the Netherlands and the United States; the Nigerian National Petroleum Company of the joint ventures with Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies and Eni, the majors' sale of the onshore fields to Seplat, Oando and Renaissance in 2024–25; the Dangote refinery of Lekki of 650,000 barrels a day, the largest single-train refinery in the world, opened 2024 for the fuel the country imported for decades, the naira-for-crude deal and the fights with the marketers; the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries of the state restarted and stalled; the gas of the NLNG of Bonny, the Train 7, the AKK pipeline north and the Nigeria–Morocco line of the plans; the flaring |
| Farming | The largest producer of cassava in the world, of yams, of cowpeas and of sorghum in Africa, the fourth of cocoa, the palm oil that was the world's first export before the war, the rice of Kebbi, the cattle of the Fulani, the fish of the delta; the smallholders of 80% of the farms and the banditry that emptied the northwest's fields; the Niger Delta agriculture fund of US$500 million of 15 July 2026; the food inflation of 40% of 2024; the fertilizer of Dangote |
| Industry and the services | Dangote — the cement of Obajana, the largest in Africa, the sugar, the fertilizer of Lekki and the refinery, Aliko Dangote the richest African; the BUA of the rival; the telecoms of MTN Nigeria of 80 million lines, Airtel, Glo, the 220 million lines and the Starlink; the banks of Zenith, Access, GTCO and the naira's float; the fintech unicorns of Flutterwave, Paystack, Moniepoint, OPay and Interswitch, the "Silicon Lagoon" of Yaba; the Lekki Free Zone and the Lagos port; the Innoson cars of Nnewi; the Aba shoes; the manufacturing of a tenth of GDP |
| Nollywood and Afrobeats | Nollywood, the second-largest film industry of the world by the count of the titles, 2,500 films a year since the video boom of "Living in Bondage" of 1992, the Netflix and Amazon deals, about US$1 billion and a million jobs; Afrobeats, the sound of Lagos gone to the world — Burna Boy's Grammy of 2021, Wizkid, Davido, Tems, Rema, Ayra Starr, the O2 arenas and the Grammys' category of 2024; Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat founder, the first African given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, on 31 January 2026; the writers of Achebe, Soyinka, the Nobel of 1986, Adichie; the "Detty December" of the diaspora's return |
| Trade | Exports of about US$50 billion — crude and gas nine-tenths, the cocoa, the sesame, the cashews, the fertilizer and the refined fuel of Dangote — to India, Spain, the Netherlands, the United States under the 12.5% tariff of 24 July 2026, France, China of the zero tariff of 1 May 2026; imports of the fuel that the refinery replaces, the wheat, the machinery and the cars; the AfCFTA; the ECOWAS trade of the Seme and the Sahel; the smuggled rice and the smuggled fuel |
| Public finances | Public debt about 50% of GDP, ₦150 trillion and more with the naira's fall, the debt service that took two-thirds of the revenue in 2023 and a third since the subsidy's end; the budget of ₦55 trillion for 2026, the defense its largest line, the "budget of restoration"; the tax acts of 2025 in force from 1 January 2026, the corporate rate cut, the small firms freed, the VAT kept at 7.5% after the states' revolt; the fuel subsidy of ₦4 trillion a year ended 29 May 2023; the World Bank's US$2.25 billion of 2024; the states' allocations grown by the naira; the "japa" of the taxpayers |
| Income classification | Lower-middle income (World Bank) |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airports | Murtala Muhammed International Airport at Lagos, about 8 million passengers, the door of the country, its fire of 23 February 2026; Nnamdi Azikiwe of Abuja; Port Harcourt; Mallam Aminu Kano; Enugu, Kaduna, Owerri, Calabar of the 30 airports; the Lagos second terminal of 2022 |
|---|---|
| Airlines | Air Peace, the largest, of the Lagos–London route of 2024 and the Boeing 777s; Arik, Ibom Air of Akwa Ibom, Aero, Overland, United Nigeria, Max Air; the "Nigeria Air" of the ministers' fake launch of May 2023 that never flew; Nigeria Airways of 1958 liquidated in 2003; the British, Emirates, Qatar and Ethiopian links |
| Main ports | Lagos — Apapa and Tin Can Island of the gridlock and the containers, two-thirds of the trade; the Lekki Deep Sea Port of January 2023, the largest of the country, of the Chinese and the Tolaram; Onne of the oil services, Port Harcourt, Warri, Calabar; the British-funded refurbishment of the Lagos ports of the deal of 19 March 2026; the Bonny and Forcados oil terminals |
| Railways | About 3,800 km (2,360 mi) of the colonial narrow gauge from Lagos to Kano and Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, rehabilitated in part, and the standard-gauge lines of the Chinese loans — Abuja–Kaduna of 2016, attacked by the bandits on 28 March 2022 with 62 kidnapped, Lagos–Ibadan of 2021, Warri–Itakpe of 2020, its train derailed on 8 June 2026 with four dead, Kano–Maradi to Niger building, the Lagos–Calabar coastal line of the plans; the Lagos Blue Line of September 2023 and the Red Line of 2024, the first urban rail of West Africa; the Abuja light rail |
| Roads | About 195,000 km (121,000 mi), about 60,000 paved and many broken — the Lagos–Ibadan expressway, the Abuja–Kano, the Enugu–Onitsha, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway of 700 km begun in 2024, the Sokoto–Badagry of the plans; the Third Mainland Bridge of Lagos of 11.8 km, the longest in Africa until 1996; the Second Niger Bridge of 2023 at Onitsha; the danfo buses and the okada motorbikes of Lagos, the keke tricycles; the tanker fires and the crashes of every month; the driving on the right |
| The creeks and the lagoon | The waterways of the delta of 8,600 km, the speedboats of Bayelsa and the barges of the Niger; the Lagos lagoon ferries; the boat that sank in the Yobe on 3 January 2026 with 25 dead; the Kainji and the Niger dredged for the Baro port; the pipelines of the Delta and their vandals |
History in dates
| c. 1500 BC | The Nok culture and its terracottas, to c. 500 AD |
|---|---|
| c. 1000 | Kanem-Bornu on Lake Chad; the Hausa city-states |
| c. 1200 | Ife and its bronzes; Benin's kingdom, c. 1440 to 1897 |
| 1472 | The Portuguese at the Lagos lagoon |
| 1804 | The Sokoto jihad of Usman dan Fodio — the caliphate |
| 1807 | Britain abolishes the slave trade — the Bights of Benin and Biafra |
| 1861 | Lagos annexed, 6 August |
| 1897 | Benin sacked and its bronzes taken, February; "Nigeria" named, 8 January |
| 1900 | The Northern and Southern Protectorates, 1 January |
| 1903 | Sokoto falls to Lugard, 15 March |
| 1914 | The amalgamation, 1 January |
| 1929 | The Aba women's war |
| 1949 | The Iva Valley shooting, 18 November — 21 miners |
| 1956 | Oil at Oloibiri, January |
| 1960 | Independence, 1 October — Balewa |
| 1963 | The republic, 1 October — Azikiwe |
| 1966 | The coups of 15 January and 29 July; the pogroms |
| 1967 | Biafra secedes, 30 May — the war to 15 January 1970, a million dead |
| 1973 | The naira |
| 1976 | Murtala Muhammed assassinated, 13 February; Abuja chosen |
| 1979 | The Second Republic, 1 October — Shagari |
| 1983 | Buhari's coup, 31 December |
| 1985 | Babangida, 27 August |
| 1991 | Abuja the capital, 12 December |
| 1993 | The 12 June election annulled; Abacha, 17 November |
| 1995 | Ken Saro-Wiwa hanged, 10 November |
| 1998 | Abacha dies, 8 June; Abiola dies, 7 July |
| 1999 | The Fourth Republic, 29 May — Obasanjo |
| 2009 | Boko Haram's uprising, July |
| 2014 | Chibok, 14 April — 276 girls; the rebasing, the largest economy |
| 2015 | Buhari wins, 28 March — the first change by the ballot |
| 2020 | #EndSARS; Lekki, 20 October |
| 2023 | The election, 25 February; Tinubu, 29 May — the subsidy gone; the Supreme Court, 26 October |
| 2024 | The anthem restored, 29 May; the hunger protests, 1–10 August; the Alau flood, 10 September |
| 2025 | The Rivers emergency, 18 March; the Mokwa flood, 29 May; Yelwata, 13–14 June; the tax acts, 26 June; the rebasing, July; the ADC coalition, July; the designation, 31 October; Papiri, 21 November; Kanu's life sentence, 20 November; the Christmas strikes, 25 December |
| 2026 | The tax acts in force, 1 January; the third place, 17 January; Fela's Grammy, 31 January; Kwara, 4 February; the U.S. troops, 16 February; Ngoshe, 6 March; the UK deal, 19 March; Jilli, 11 April; al-Minuki killed, 16 May; the ADC order, 15 June; the U.S. withdrawal, 3 July; the tariff, 24 July; the interfaith accord, 12 August; the campaigns open, 19 August; the election, 16 January 2027 |
Records & firsts
| The most populous country of Africa | About 237 million |
|---|---|
| The largest Black nation on earth | One in five Africans |
| The most languages after Papua New Guinea and Indonesia | About 520 |
| The largest producer of cassava and yams | The world's |
| The largest gas reserves of Africa | 200 trillion cubic feet |
| The largest single-train refinery | Dangote, 650,000 barrels a day |
| The second-largest film industry | Nollywood, 2,500 films a year |
| The largest delta of Africa | The Niger, 70,000 km² |
| The first African Olympic football gold | Atlanta, 1996 |
| The first African Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award | Fela Kuti, 31 January 2026 |
| The first urban rail of West Africa | The Lagos Blue Line, 2023 |
| The most children out of school | 20 million |
| A census twenty years old | 2006 |
| The lowest turnout of a presidential election | 26.7%, 2023 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Nigeria?
The Federal Republic of Nigeria — the federation of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory that gained its independence from Britain on 1 October 1960 under Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, became a republic on the same day in 1963, and has lived since through a civil war, six coups and thirty years of generals before the Fourth Republic of 29 May 1999. The name was coined by the British journalist Flora Shaw, later Lady Lugard, in The Times of London on 8 January 1897 for the lands along the Niger that the Royal Niger Company administered, "Niger-area," and was given to the whole colony when her husband Frederick Lugard amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates on 1 January 1914; the river's own name is the Tuareg "river of rivers," and the country is the "Giant of Africa" of its own press.
What is the capital of Nigeria?
Abuja — the planned city in the geographic center of the country, in the Federal Capital Territory carved out of three states in 1976 as a neutral ground between the north and south, built from the 1980s on the plan of the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and made the capital on 12 December 1991 in place of Lagos — about 4 million people now in the city that Zuma Rock guards on the road from the north, with the Aso Rock of the presidential villa, the National Mosque and the National Church facing each other across the axis, and the fastest growth of any city in Africa. Lagos, the port and the former capital on its islands and lagoon, is the largest city with about 17 million by the state's count and the commercial capital; Kano of the north, Ibadan of the Yoruba, Port Harcourt of the oil and Benin City follow.
How big is Nigeria, and how many people live there?
About 923,768 km² (356,669 sq mi) — twice the size of California, the thirty-second-largest country in the world — on the Gulf of Guinea between Benin and Cameroon, with Niger to the north and a corner of Chad on the lake, from the mangroves of the delta to the Sahel. The last census was held in 2006 and counted 140,431,790; the census planned for 2023 has been postponed again and again, and the United Nations estimates about 237 million people in 2026 — the most populous country of Africa and the sixth of the world, growing at 2.1 percent a year with half the people under 18, on course to pass the United States as the third-most populous country by 2050; some 250 ethnic groups speak more than 500 languages, the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo the three of the great regions.
What are the highest and lowest points of Nigeria?
Chappal Waddi, 2,419 m (7,936 ft), "the mountain of death" on the Mambilla Plateau of Taraba State at the Cameroonian border in the far east, the highest point of the country and of West Africa west of Cameroon's own peak; and the Atlantic. The Niger, the third river of Africa, enters from Benin and meets the Benue at Lokoja before spreading into the largest delta of the continent, 70,000 km² of creeks, mangroves and oil wells; the Jos Plateau of the tin mines rises to 1,800 m in the middle of the country, and Lake Chad in the northeast corner, once the fourth-largest lake of Africa, has shrunk by nine-tenths since the 1960s.
What currency does Nigeria use?
The naira (ISO code NGN, ₦), of 100 kobo, introduced on 1 January 1973 in place of the pound at two naira to the pound — a currency that has lost seven-tenths of its value against the dollar since the government floated it in June 2023, from about 460 to about 1,500 to the U.S. dollar, the unification of the exchange rates that ended the black market's premium and the subsidy that had propped it, the notes redesigned in the chaos of early 2023 and the old ones kept in circulation; the West African "eco" of the single currency has not come. Clocks keep West Africa Time, UTC+1, all year; Nigeria drives on the right since 2 April 1972, when it switched from the British left.
Who governs Nigeria?
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, head of state and government since 29 May 2023, the former governor of Lagos and kingmaker of the party who won the election of February 2023 with 37 percent of the vote in a three-way race and on the day of his inauguration ended the fuel subsidy that had cost the state a tenth of its budget, then floated the naira — the reforms that the investors and the IMF praised and that doubled the prices of the poor; with Kashim Shettima as vice president and a National Assembly his party controls. The campaign for the election of 16 January 2027 opened on 19 August 2026 with Tinubu renominated in May, and his rivals of 2023 are back on separate tickets after their coalition split: Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president, for the African Democratic Congress, and Peter Obi, the former Anambra governor whose young urban voters carried him to a quarter of the vote, for the new Nigeria Democratic Congress with Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano as his running mate; "the mathematics favour Tinubu even with weak personal numbers," an analyst told Al Jazeera, and the cost of living and the kidnappings are the questions of the year.
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