Colonial era (1880 - 1960)
1880-1905
Southern Nigeria is conquered by the British.
1903
British conquer most of Northern Nigeria including the Sokoto Caliphate.
1912
rule.
Lord Lugard, governor of Northern Nigeria establishes a system of indirect
1914 — Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria are amalgamated to form Nigeria.
1946-1960
Nigeria enters a period of decolonisation as Nigerian nationalism grows.
1959
Nigeria holds its first national election to setup an independent government.
Northern Nigeria wins most of the seats of parliament.
Post-colonial era (1960-1979)
October 1, 1960 — Nigeria gains her independence from Britain; Tafawa Balewa
becomes Prime Minister, and Nnamdi Azikiwe becomes President.
October 1, 1963 — Nigeria severs its remaining ties to Britain, and the Nigerian First
Republic is born.
January 15, 1966 — Nigeria's first military coup deposes the Nigerian First Republic
July 29, 1966 — A counter-coup by military officers of northern extraction, deposes
the Federal Military Government;
1967 — Ethno-religious violence between Igbo Christians, and Hausa/Fulani Muslims in
Eastern and Northern Nigeria, triggers a migration of the Igbo back to the East.
May 30, 1967 — General Emeka Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, declares
his province an independent republic called Biafra, and the Nigerian-Biafran War ensues.
January 15, 1970 —Biafra surrenders to Nigerian forces and Biafra is reintegrated into
Nigeria.
July 29, 1975 — General Yakubu Gowon is overthrown in a bloodless coup; General
Murtala Mohammed becomes Head of State.
February 13, 1976 — General Murtala Mohammed is assassinated on his way to work;
His deputy, Lieutenant-General Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Head of State, and sets a
date to terminate military rule.
1979 — Shehu Shagari wins the election as the first Executive President of Nigeria in
the American-styled Second Republic.
Causes of the Nigerian Civil War (also referred to as the Biafran War)
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967 – 15 January
1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern
provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.
The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the
various peoples of Nigeria. Like many other African nations, Nigeria was an artificial
structure initiated by the British which had neglected to consider religious, linguistic, and
ethnic differences. Nigeria, which gained independence from Britain in 1960, had at that
time a population of 60 million people consisting of nearly 300 differing ethnic and cultural
groups.
The causes of the Nigerian civil war were diverse. More than fifty years earlier, Great
Britain carved an area out of West Africa containing hundreds of different ethnic groups
and unified it, calling it Nigeria. Although the area contained many different groups, three
were predominant: the Igbo, which formed between 60-80% of the population in the
southeast, the Hausa-Fulani, which formed about 65% of the peoples in the northern part of
the territory; the Yoruba, which formed about 2% of the population in the southwestern
part.
The semi-feudal and Islamic Hausa-Fulani in the North were traditionally ruled by an
autocratic, conservative Islamic hierarchy consisting of some thirty-odd Emirs who, in turn,
owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan. This Sultan was regarded as the source of all
political power and religious authority.
The Yoruba political system in the southwest, like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of
a series of monarchs being the Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic
than those in the North, and the political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly
allowed for greater upward mobility based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and
title.
The Igbo in the southeast, in contrast to the two other groups, lived mostly in mostly
autonomous, democratically-organised communities although there were monarchs in many of
ancient cities. Unlike the other two regions, decisions among the Igbo were made by a
general assembly in which every man could participate.
The differing political systems among these three peoples produced radically divergent
customs and values.
These tradition-derived differences were perpetuated and, perhaps, even enhanced by the
British system of colonial rule in Nigeria. In the North, the British found it convenient to
rule indirectly through the Emirs, thus perpetuating rather than changing the indigenous
authoritarian political system. As a result of this system, Christian missionaries were
excluded from the North, and the area thus remained virtually closed to Western education
and influence. This was in direct contrast to the Igbo, the richest of whom sent many of
their sons to British universities. During the ensuing years, the Northern Emirs thus were
able to maintain traditional political and religious institutions, while limiting social change. As
a result, the North, at the time of independence in 1960, was by far the most
underdeveloped area in Nigeria, with a literacy rate of 5% as compared to 5.66% in the East
(literacy in Arabic script, learned in connection with religious education, was higher). The
West enjoyed a much higher literacy level, being the first part of the country to have
contact with western education in addition to the free primary education program of the
pre-independence Western Regional Government.
In the South, the missionaries rapidly introduced Western forms of education. Consequently,
the Yoruba were the first group in Nigeria to become significantly modernised and they
provided the first African civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and other technicians and
professionals.
In Igbo areas, missionaries were introduced at a later date because of British difficulty in
establishing firm control over the highly autonomous Igbo communities. However, the Igbo
people took to Western education zealously, and they overwhelmingly came to adopt
Christianity. Population pressure in the Igbo homeland combined with an intense desire for
economic improvement drove thousands of Igbo to other parts of Nigeria in search of work.
By the 1960s the Igbo had become politically unified and economically prosperous, with
tradesmen and literate elites active not just in the traditionally Igbo South, but throughout
Nigeria.
The British political ideology of dividing Nigeria during the colonial period into three regions
North, West and East exacerbated the already well-developed economic, political, and social
competition among Nigeria's different ethnic groups. For the country was divided in such a
way that the North had slightly more population than the other two regions combined. On
this basis the Northern Region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal
Legislature established by the colonial authorities; the disintegration of Nigeria resulted
largely from the fact that the political parties were primarily based in one region and one
tribe.
The period between 1966 to 1979 was characterised by military intervention, takeovers and
civil war. National rivalries and ethnic sentiments reflected in the national armed forces led
to a military intervention in January 1966. Tafawa Balewa’s government was overthrown by
junior (mainly Ibo) army officers. Many leading military and political figures were killed in a
coup d’état. Regional conflicts flared, prompting massacres of Igbo-speakers living in the
north. The Supreme Military Council was formed and the constitution suspended.
The Biafran civil war erupted in 1967 when the military governor of
the Eastern Region, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
announced the secession of the Eastern Region and proclaimed its
independence as the ‘Republic of Biafra’ on May 30 of the same year.
During the civil war, military casualties reached an estimated
1,000,000. Biafran civilians died mainly from starvation as a result of
the federal blockade.