Geographical Background of Nigeria

GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND OF NIGERIA

​Nigerian peoples and culture has to do with the country that is made up the largest single pole units in West Africa sub region. It also contains the world largest concentration of Negroes (black people). It is bounded by the Republic of Benin (Dahomey) in the West, on the Eastern-coast, it shares a border with the Gulf of Guinea. On the North, it is bounded by the Republic of Niger, on the North-east by Lake Chad. It adjoins the Cameroun Republic on the East and in the South by the Atlantic Ocean.

​ Nigeria has a total area of 923768 square kilometres, with land mass covers 910768 square kilometres and waterway covers 13000square kilometres. It is located in the tropical climatic zone which is hot all the year round. There are two major air masses that determine the seasonal pattern of rainfall (Northeast and Southeast Trade winds) these air masses caused variations in seasonal patterns of rainfall that bring two distinctive seasons of the year i.e rainy and dry seasons. The intermixed of these two seasons brings the Harmattan. The variations in the seasonal pattern of rainfall also bring differences in the vegetation which has given Nigeria a geographical division that may conveniently divided into forestland and grassland.

​Within these two geographical divisions four vegetation zones can be traced for instance, in the forest region, we have thick forest vegetation that covers states like Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Imo, Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu. The second one is swamps forest which is along the coast. States located here are; Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Lagos. In the grassland region, we have semi-savannah which lies between the forest region and savannah zone. States along this zone are; Kwara, Niger, plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Kogi and Adamawa. The fourth zone is savannah zone where there is low annual rainfall with abundance of grass. States that can be found in this zone are; Kaduna, Gombe, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi, Kebbi, Yobe, Bornu, Jigawa and Kano.

​The major physical features in Nigeria are Plateau to the centres of the North and the Oban hills to the East which merge with Adamawa highlands and the Cameroun Mountains. River Niger and Benue are the popular rivers in Nigeria. Besides, there are some other rivers such as river Ogun, Imo, Cross River which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. River Kaduna empties into river Niger. In the extreme North-eastern Nigeria is Lake Chad, a depression which is an inland water system.

​THE PEOPLES AND NOTABLE ETHNIC GROUPS IN NIGERIA

​The peoples of Nigeria are varied in accordance to the geographical location that has provided natural division. Hence, it has divided Nigeria into three distinctive regions (North, Middle belt and the south). The people that were brought together and now called Nigerian initially belonged to different communities, kingdoms and empires. These peoples had converged to form different ethnic groups and developed the kind of political institutions and set of rules, laws, values and customs that suitable of their area of jurisdiction.

​There are about 500 different ethnic groups within the boundaries of Nigeria. But the three major ones are; Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo. Although there are some other prominent ethnic groups in accordance to geographical divisions these are;

1. Northern Nigeria: we have the following ethnic groups; Hausa, kanuri Fulani

2. Middle Belt: The Nupe, Tiv, Idoma and Igala

3. Southern Nigeria: The Yoruba, Edo(Benin), Igbo, Ijaw, Iteskiri and Urobo

​Many of these ethnic groups traced their origins outside Nigeria and maintained either centralized or Non-centralized or segmentary socio-political organization.

A centralized state refers to a community made up of independent villages or towns that has only one source of political power that concentrated on the head of such political unit. Examples of centralized states in pre-colonial Nigeria are Oyo, Kanem-Bornu and Benin, Ijaw, Itsekiri, Nupe, Igala, Calabar etc

A non-centralized or segmentary state refers to a kind of political unit where source of political power is not derived from only one source. In this system particularly among Igbo village forms the political unit while the political power derived from two basic institutions i.e. Council of elders (Ama-ala) and village assembly. Other examples of non-centralized states are Ibibio, Urhobo, Isoko, Idoma, Tiv.