NIGERIA

Nigeria, one of the largest states in Africa with an area of 925,000 sq Km (357 000 sq miles) and a population exceeding 79 million. It stretches over 10 degree of latitude from the gulf of guinea to the edge of Sahara and is a land of great contrasts It’s borders were determine by the British government who tried to make a political unit out of territory that never had any natural unity. A land of varied contrasts; Contrasts in people: There are three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Yoruba in the western part of the country, the Hausa-Fulani in the northern part and the Ibo in the eastern part of the country and many smaller tribal units. There are over400 Linguistic groups in Nigeria and broadcast have to be given in forty-six languages. Minority groups live in the main tribal areas, and Hausa and Fulani people live over the northern border in Niger as well as in Nigeria, while Yoruba in Benin are divided from their Kinsmen in western Nigeria. About 42 per cent of the population is Muslim, mainly in the north. The Christians (35 per cent) are mostly in the south; the remaining 23 per cent are animists, worshiping spirits. Contrasts in relief Click here The country with varied natural and minerals relief but the most striking feature is the high plateau country in the center of northern Nigeria, bounded by troughs occupied by the Niger and the Benue rivers which unite to flow into the gulf of Guinea through the Niger Delta. The plateau covers nearly one-fifth of the country and consists of two levels, one at about 750 m(2 500 ft) and the higher Jos plateau between 1 200 and 1 600 m (4 000 and 5 000 ft). Inselbergs, conical in shape, or consisting of piles of giant boulders, stand out from the generally level surface. Crater lakes and volcanic plugs are evidence of former volcanic activity, and on the Jos plateau tabular blocks capped with basalt are formed by erosion of lava plateau surfaces. Many rivers rise on the plateau and flow into the Niger or Benue or eastward to Lake Chad. Gorges and waterfalls occur where the rivers descend the south- western scarp of Jos plateau. The Y-shape of the Niger-Benue river system is a prominent feature of the map of Nigeria. The high plateau country lies between the two arms of the Y, and to south-west and south-east are more areas of highland. The western Highlands, mainly between 300 and 600 m (1 000 and 2 000 ft). form a divide between drainage to the Niger and that direct to the Gulf of Guinea. The generally level surface is broken by Inselbergs. The eastern Highlands are higher and extend over the border into Cameroon and north of the Benue valley. Mountain south of the Benue are between 1 800 and 2 400 m ( 6 000 and 8 000 ft) high, and spurs of the Cameroon mountains rise over 1 200 m ( 4000 ft) above the cross River plains. The lowlands are in southern Nigeria except for the sokoto plains in the North-West and the Lake Chad Basin in the north-east. The Sokoto plains at average height of only 150 m ( 500 ft) are monotonously flat except where a cuesta ( a ridge with a steep scarp to the south-east and a gentler north-west facing backslope) rises a further 50 m ( 150 ft) south-east of Sokoto. Rivers flow across the plains to the Niger in flat-floored valleys; these are flooded in the wet season, though in the dry season the waters recede and expose fertile alluvium. Sure areas are favorable for cultivation and are known by the Hausa as fadamas. The Chad Basin is an area of inland of drainage, flat except for long sand ridges running across it from north-east to south-west. The Niger-Benue is floored with sedimentary deposit, Its surface generally only 3 00 m (1 000 ft) or less above sea level. The rivers join near Lokoja and flow south, entering the Gulf of Guinea through the numerous distributaries of the Niger Delta. The west of the Delta a strip of coast less than 30 m ( 1 00 ft) above sea level consists of recent deposits of sands, clays mud. In many places sandbars enclosed lagoons running parallel to the coast. Between this belt and the western Highlands are low lands dipping gently southward and cut by parallel river valleys. To the east of the Niger lie scarplands of stones and coal Measure with the Cross River plains beyond them. Contrasts in climate Along the coast and in a belt stretching 160 km ( 100 miles) inland temperatures, rainfall and humidity are high throughout the year. No month has less than 25 mm ( 1 in) of rain, there is a double maximum coinciding the passage of the overhead sun and the total fall is everywhere over 1 500 mm ( 60 in), with 1 750 mm ( 70 in) at Lagos and 3040 mm (120 in) at Calabar. In central Nigeria temperatures remain high but the rainfall decreases in amount to between 1 000 and 1 500 mm (40 and 60 in) and there are up to four months without rain. Farther north the dry season lengthens to eight months near the northern border, and the total fall decreases from 1 000 mm to 5 00 mm ( 40 to 20 in). Relative humidity is low and north annual diurnal range of temperatures is higher than in the south. Sokoto has a mean annual range of 9 degree Celsius ( 15 degree F) but in January the temperature may rise to 35 degree Celsius ( 95 degree F) during the day and drop to 15-5 degree Celsius ( 60 degree F) at night. The altitude of the Jos plateau and higher part of the Eastern Highlands gives them a heavier rainfall than other places in the same latitude, and temperatures are more equable. Contrasts in Vegetation Mangrove swamps fringe the coast and there is then gradual transition from tropical rain forest, through wooded Guinea savanna to Sudan savanna in the north, with a zone of still drier Sahel savanna in the north-east. On the Jos plateau wide grassy plains instead of Guinea savanna. Contrasts in economic possibilities Nigeria has great economic advantages because of its varied physical geography and the enormous size of its potentially cultivable land. Over 80 percent of the people depend on agriculture f or their livelihood, and Nigeria could be almost self-sufficient for food. But production has not kept pace with population growth, and food imports have increased. Although many areas produce surpluses, not all have enough for their own need. Agricultural products used to make up nearly two-thirds of Nigeria’s export by value, but a high proportion of those came from the south. Oil is now the largest single export by value, 95 per cent of the total, but it comes from only four of the nineteen states. The regions and the nineteen states This economic imbalance was one of the causes of division of the regions into twelve states in 1967, and also of the civil war. At independence in 1960 three regions, the Western, the Northern and Eastern made up the federation of Nigeria. Eastern Nigeria was the most developed economically and its Ibo people occupied important posts all over the federation. But about 27 million people lived in the largely Muslim North, with only about 12 million in the East and another 10 million in the West. The West was weaken by being divided; a fourth region, Mid-West, was created from minority peoples living in the Yoruba Western Region, which dominated the federal government because of its greater population and therefore it’s larger representation, and the economically advanced Eastern Region. in 1967 the government decided to divide the country into twelve states to try to prevent the break-up of the federation and to lessen the power of the large ethnic groups. The Eastern Region respond by declaring its indepence as the Republic of Biafra and in the civil war that followed suffered defeat in 1970. Since then the federal government has made a determine effort to hold the country together, seeking to prevent any one group from dominating or exerting undue pressure on another. And in 1976 created seven more states by sub-division with nine from the pre-1967 northern region and ten from the three southern regions. The great variation in resources between the nineteen states presents difficulties for development. A new federal capital is planned just south of Abuja in Niger state on 8 000 sq km ( 3 000 sq miles) set aside as federal territory; Lagos would remain the commercial center,but the new capital would not only be in a more central position in the country as a whole ,but would also be outside the area dominated by any of the major ethnic groups. The third development plan, 1975-1980, is designed to use the revenue from oil together with resources from overseas to increase the standard of living of Nigerians generally and to reduce the independence of the economy on oil by developing manufacturing industry and agriculture. Reduced production in 1975 as a result of a drop in world demand consequent on high price rises made this an urgent priority. Although agriculture is still the major occupation of most of the people in the contribution of oil to foreign exchange makes many economic developments possible. Oil was first discovered in the swamps of Niger Delta in 1956. By 1964 ten fields were in operation, and a terminal had been constructed at the mouth of the Bonny River. Oil production and exports Expansion was steady, apart from the interruption of the civil war, until 1975 when a fall in world demand following on inflation led to a drop in production from an average of 2.3 million barrels a day to 1.5 million. Since then output has recovered, and with new exploration is hoped that a target of 3 million barrels a day will be reached. In 1977 Nigeria was the fifth world producer of crude oil. Oil is produced in four states, Rivers (with nearly half the total), Cross River, Imo and Bendel. Shell-BP is the largest company involved, with 66 per cent of the total production, but other international company also hold concessions. Nigeria’s own Nigeria National Oil company is taking an increasing share in exploration, drilling and refining, and now has a 55 per cent share in revenue from all stages of the industry with a 60 per cent share in the oil refinery at port Harcourt. Further discoveries of oil have been made, both in the delta region and offshore. Exploration is expensive because of the tropical swamp in which most of the wells are situated: a network of pipelines and pumping stations is needed, but the low sulphur content of the oil, and the relative proximity of the wells to the sea benefit the export trade. The USA is the main customer, followed by the Netherlands. An offshore terminal had been opened 16 km ( 10 miles) from the mouth of the Forcados River, and pipelines also takes oil for export to Bonny and Brass. In spite of Nigeria’s oil production petol is sometimes diffuclt to obtain in parts of the country. The refinery at Port Harcourt cannot meet the domestic needs and petrol has to be imported. Two new refineries, both entirely Nigerian-owned, are nearing completion, one at warri and the other at kaduna. A network of pipelines will take crude oil to the refineries, and it is hoped that distribution of petrol will be improved throughout the country. Under the third development plan a gas liquefaction plant is to be built at Bonny, and the petrol chemical and fertilizer industries are to be developed. The oil industry employs 4 500 men but a further 15000 are employed in firms dependent on the oil industry. Agriculture It has been suggested that over 70 per cent of Nigeria could be cultivated if fertilizers were applied to restore the fertility lost by leaching of the soil. There are millions of small farmers who cannot afford to buy fertilizer although they grow much of the food that the country needs. In the southern forests they grow yams, cassava, sweet potatoes, maize and rice; in central Nigeria yams and maize; and in the northern savannas millet, Guinea corn and groundnuts, although they were serious shortages in the early seventies because of drought. Not all part produce enough food for their own needs, preferring to grow cash crops and distribution is a problem; communications must be improved so that surplus food can be moved rapidly to such dense peopled areas as the Ibo lands in the east. The government operation feed the nation is encouraging farmers to concentrate on food crops rather than on cash crops, providing them with fertilizers, seed, tractors for hire and loans. Every citizen is urged to grow some food in his own home. Cash crops Agricultural export were still the largest source of foreign exchange in 1968, but low world prices, the drought in the north and the expansion of oil production have change this position. In 1976 accounted for 94 per cent of all exports by value. Cocoa is grown on small farms in the forest belt of the west but export are declining, as are those of palm kernels. The Ivory Coast has overtaken Nigeria as an exporter of both these commodities. The oil palm grows throughout the forest belt and in the area to the north where frequent cultivation has transformed former forest into woodland savanna. In the west the fruit is used mainly in cooking; most of the oil and a high proportion of the kernels exported come from the east, especially from the scarplands and plains east of Onitsha. A typical farm is small, each family holding 2 to 3 ha ( 5 to 6 acres) of which 1 to 2 ha (3 to 4 acres) are under crops at any one time. Pressure of population on the land shortens the fallow period and the land is used intensively, one crop following another and beans sometimes being intercropped with the maize. Each family group owns some palm groves. The government is improving method of extraction and introducing centralized oil mills. Nigeria used to be a major producer and exporter of groundnuts, but the dry years of the early seventies severely restricted harvests, and since then the government has required farmers to concentrate on the home market to lessen the need for imported food. Groundnuts are produced by peasant farmers on the sandy soils of the savanna and collected in such cities as Kano for transport to the south. Kano state produces half the total. The huge pyramids of sacks outside the city are a striking feature of the landscape and the movement of such a bulky crop over long distances is a problem. A further difficulty arises from the fact that groundnuts take a large amount of phosphate from the soil which therefore needs expensive fertilizer. Cotton is the only other cash crop produced in the north on a large scale. It is grown by the small farmers, and supply both the traditional small scale-scale spinners and weavers of cloth in Kano and Zaria, and also the textile factories recently established. Cotton seed is also exported, and provide 90 per cent of the world’s supply. Future development There are many schemes for developing Nigeria’s agriculture. The area under sugar and rubber is increasing. Sugar cane originally grown on the fadamas of Sokoto plains, and now in the middle Niger valley near Jebba, already supply local needs. A more important project is that in progress in Gongola state at the confluence of Benue and Gongola Rivers. A huge sugar plantation is being established here by the savannah sugar company, owned jointly by state and federal governments. Irrigation water will come from a Dam under construction on the Gongola River, and when the scheme is complete it is planned that about 4 500 workers will be employed, who will farm their own land for part of the year; round the company’s plantation 4 000 small holders are expected to cultivate about 5 ha (12 acres) each. The factory molasses will provide cattle feed, and by 1983 production of sugar will be over 100 000 tons. Rubber is grown in the forest of Bendel state, and export are increasing. The government will like to increase the breed of cattle in the north and to produce more home-grown beef, but lack of water in the long dry season is still a difficulty. Other development include the consolidation of holdings, the setting up of cooperatives, the bringing into cultivation of marginal land, and on larger holdings the use of simple machinery. Irrigation schemes of varying size are under construction or uncompleted in many part of the drier northern part of the country, each providing additional irrigated land, mainly for the production of food. Nine river basin authorities have been established to coordinate agricultural development in their areas. Farm settlement schemes have been in operation for some years in the south-east and south-west. They are run on lines smaller to an Israeli kibbutz. An area varying from 1 200 to 5 000 ha ( 3 000 to 12 000 acres) is cleared and a village is built for up to 720 student farmers. Each is given 1 ha (2.5 acres) on which to grow food and oil palms, cocoa, rubber , and citrus are planted. The farmers being given a small wage until these produce an income, while experts provide seed and advice. Communications All these improvement in agriculture will be effective in distributing home-produced food throughout the country and increasing export if only communications are improved. The railway from Lagos to the North is usually only single-track and is often congested, groundnuts may wait for months to move from Kano and sometimes deteriorate, and its takes eight hours to travel 112 km ( 70 miles) from Lagos to Ibadan most of the country must depend on road transport. The South-West has the best network; elsewhere roads are few and often in poor conditions, but the third development plan includes schemes for improving communication by rail, road and air. The middle belt The northern savannas grow groundnuts and cotton, the southern forest produce a variety of cash crops and the coastlands have oil, but there is a stretch of country between these zones that is scantily peopled and seem to have few resources. This middle belt is tsetse-infested and therefore unsuitable for cattle rearing and its climate is unfavorable both to the growth of cocoa and oil palm of the south and to the groundnuts of the north. Yams and benniseed (sesame) are the main foods grown, but so far only 8 per cent of the area is cultivated. Five of the pre-1976 northern states extended into this middle belt, but they showed little interest in the land on their periphery. With the sub-division since then, each new state government is making great efforts to develop its area. The Tiv and Mumuye people by clearing bush for farms are destroying the breeding ground of the tsete. If this scourge were eliminated the Fulani herdsmen who bring their cattle down from the north in height of the dry season might be persuaded to keep them here all the year round. It is also hoped that the building of the Kainji Dam will benefit the Middle Belt by providing irrigated water to attract settlers. The Middle Belt may eventually become one of the country’s major food producing areas, growing yams, rice , guines corn and benniseed for distribution elsewhere. The Kainji Dam The first stage of the Kainji Dam scheme was completed in 1968. The dam was built where the Niger River cuts a trough through hard crystalline rock; behind it a lake of 1250 sq km (480 sq miles) now stretches 138 km ( 85 miles) from Kainji to Yelwa. Four generators already produce hydroelectricity; when the scheme is completed eight more will be in operation and a grid will supply electricity to one third of the country. The flow of the river is regulated so that irrigation is now possible so far downstream as Jebba. 105 km (65 miles) from Kainji, and it may be extended to the confluence of the Kaduna with the Niger. About 50 000 people who lost their homes and farms under the lake have been resettled in villages along the lakeside and are being encouraged to develop fishing. Mining and industry Tin, the most valuable mining resource until oil surpassed it during the 1960s, is mined from alluvial deposits on the Jos plateau. At brownish-black ore contains 80 per cent tin. Until 1961 it was exported as ore but two smelters at Jos now produce ingots. Nigeria produce 3 per cent of the world’s tin, and exports about 7 000 tons a year together with a byproduct, columbite, used in making heat- resistant steel. There are reserves of coal in the Anambra state near Enugu. Cooking coal has been found in plateau state to the north near Lafia. The coal was used on the railway and to produce electricity until the civil war, when many of the mines were flooded. Production will probably never return to its prewar level, because of the use of diesel railway engines, and the availability of hydroelectricity, but it is valuable for the growing iron and steel industry. Ten years ago industry provided less than 2 per cent of the national income. The federal plan to increase the number of industrial undertakings and to spread them through-out the country to equalize the development of the states. At present one- third of all industrial establishments are in Greater Lagos. The resources for industry are agricultural product rather than minerals, and the aim is to substitute home- produced goods for imported manufactured articles. It is particularly important that the northern states should industrialise, for agricultural improvement cannot alone support the high density of population of some areas. Industries in the north must be based on local materials because of distance from the coast. Textile mills have been established at Kaduna, Kano and Gusau using local cotton, and a sugar refinery at Jebba is supplied with sugar grown with irrigation from the Niger. At present about 750 000 of Nigeria’s 8 million cattle are culled each year, and many lose condition on the journey to market. It is hoped that meat packing factories and refrigeration plants will be set up in the north, and that leather and footwear factories using local hides will be established. A tannery has opened in Sokoto. The quality of the cattle could be improved by manufacturing cotton-seed cake and groundnut loaf, both high protein products. Power from Kainji is available to stimulate industrial development in the main northern centers of Zaria, Kano and Kaduna, where in addition to seven textile mills and a superphosphate factory there is a Peugeot car assembly plant, and an oil refinery will be completed by 1980. Small factories in many of the towns throughout the country use imported and, increasingly local raw materials to make a variety of goods. Smelters at Jos refine tin, and a steel rolling mill near Enugu uses local scrap metal. One of the largest of the projects of the third Development plan is the construction of an iron and steel complex at Ajaokuta on the Niger about 40 km ( 25 miles) south of its confluence with Benue. Coal will come from the Enugu field with a new railway to the plant from the main line at Oturkpo, and the track to the Port Harcourt will be doubled to carry ore imported from Guinea and Liberia to supplement local ore. Other plants are planned for warri and Port Harcourt. There is an Oil refinery at Port Harcourt and others are nearly completed at warri and Kaduna. Settlement and towns The greatest densities of population are east of the lower Niger where the Ibo people live in dispersed settlement, and there is considerable pressure of population in the north round Kano and also in the south-west. Here the Yoruba have for long lived mostly in towns, they originally came together for protection and built large compounds around a center courtyard. The compounds lined a rectangular network of streets, which in their turn were surrounded by a ditch and wall. This pattern survives today in cities like Ilorin, Abeoukuta, Ife and the Largest of all Ibadan, but in recent years new quarters have grown up alongside the old with stores, small factories, offices and single family houses. Although the people are urban dwellers, many of them are still farmers and go outside the town to cultivate their lands. In the north the main cities include Kano, Katsina,Kaduna, Sokoto, Zaria and Maiduguri. They were formerly enclosed by walls for defence, but have now spread far outside and are surrounded by permanently cultivated lands. Fertility is maintained by using human and animal excreta. Kano is the largest with a population of over 357 000, and 3 million people live within a radius of 80 km ( 50 miles). It grew up on a defensive site where rocky hills gave a wide view of the plains; the walls still stand in many places, and enclosed an area of 40 sq km (16 sq miles) with the Emir’s palace, open parade grounds and thousands of flat- roofed compounds showing blank walls to the street but opening on to inner courtyards. Outside the walls is the modern city with factories making Raleigh bicycles, furniture, soap, groundnut oil, textiles, and fertilizer; Kano is also a center for the traditional industries of weaving and dyeing cloth, leather working and brasswork. In the past Kano was important as the terminus of trans-Saharan routes; a British Algerian company now runs a weekly convey of large trailers to Algiers, taking eight to ten days. Today it has a busy international airport and is linked by rail with the coast at Lagos and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the federal capital with more than a million people and nearly 4 million in the surrounding area. Eko, the original settlement, was on Lagos Island which separate Lagos Lagoon from the sea. This Island was divided into two by constructing a canal through it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and a new residential area grew up on the east end of the Island now known as Ikoyi Island, settlement has spread to Victoria Island to the south and to the mainland. Growth was especially rapid between 1952 and 1962 when the population increased by over 400, 000 mainly because immigration from other parts of Nigeria. The center of the city is very overcrowded with a density of 3 900 sq km (10 000 per sq miles) on Lagos Island and 30 per cent of the city’s population; people have been rehoused on the mainland in new suburbs like Yaba, Ebute Metta and Surulere. Communication between the Islands and the mainland is a further problem. The original Carter Bridge has become so congested that a second bridge, The Eko has been built, with associated flyovers, underpasses and a ring road round the Island to Ikoyi. The channel to the sea at Lagos has been deepened to take large ocean-going vessels the main berth are at Apapa which deals with 60 per cent of the country’s exports. In spite of additional deep water berths and a container terminal there is still considerable congestion. To ease this, a marshy island up a creek from Apapa. Tin can Island, has been transformed providing further deep water berths warehouses. Bulk handling depots have been built at Ebute Metta and considerable industry has grown up between Apapa and Yaba, manufacturing a varieties of products form local and imported materials. Volkswagen have established a large car assembly plant in the city . The Ikeja airport is 22 km (14 miles) from the city. Lagos is linked by rail with Kano and Nguru near the northern border, and via Jos with Maiduguri and the Lake Chad area. An expressway to Ibadan is under construction. Port facilities at warri and Calabar are been improved. Port Harcourt is 65 km ( 40 miles) up the Bonny River. Until the civil war oil went by pipeline to the terminal at the mouth of the river. It is now the capital of the small Rivers state and has developed as an industrial center second only to Lagos. The country’s first oil refinery is near the town , which is the natural outlet for the east and north-east, and the terminus of the railway from Maiduguri through Jos and Enugu. Conclusion Nigeria is the most populous state in Africa; it is endowed with great natural wealth and it fortunate in its variety of resources and its industrial potential. Whether it will become as prosperous as it should must depend on the success of the federal government in tackling the problem of regional disparities and in persuading the nineteen states to work together for the good of the country as a whole. Nigeria played a leading role in the establishment of the west African Economic Community (CEAO) in 1975, and on it may depend the success of this organization in dealing with the EEC and North America and in promoting social and economic integration between the member countries. https://kingstonco.blogspot.com - Robert W. Steel Eileen M. Steel