OVERVIEW OF NIGERIA

OVERVIEW OF NIGERIA

FULL NAME: The Federal Republic of Nigeria.

PRESIDENT: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

LOCATION: Nigeria is located between latitude 40N and 140N of the Equator and between longitude 30E and 150E of the Greenwich Meridian. Therefore, latitudinal extent is 100 while the longitudinal extent is 120.

POSITION: Nigeria is located on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. She is surrounded by French speaking Countries; in the west by Benin Republic, in the north by Niger Republic, in the northeast by Chad Republic, in the east by Cameroon Republic and the south is occupied by the Atlantic Ocean.

SIZE: In terms of land area, Nigeria is the fourth largest country in West Africa after Niger, Mali and Mauritania. She has a total land area of 923,768 square kilometres. The greatest distance from east to west is about 1,300 kilometres while from north to south is about 1,100 kilometres.

POPULATION: 140,003,542 million people (2006 population census). This makes her the most populous country in Africa.

CAPITAL: Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

LARGEST CITY: Lagos.

STATES: Nigeria currently has 36 states throughout the Federation and the FCT.

NATIONAL HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: The National House of Assembly comprises the Senate, which has 109 members and House of Representative with 360 members.

STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: Nigeria has 36 states house of Assembly and 1205 states House of Assembly legislators.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Nigeria has 774 Local Government Areas/Local Government Chairmen.

GEO-POLITICAL ZONES:

Nigeria is divided into six geo-political zones in Nigeria. These are:

North-Central: Niger, Benue, Plateau, Nassarawa, kwara, Kogi, and The Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

South-West: Lagos, Ekiti, Ogun, Osun, and Oyo States.

South-South: Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States.

South-East: Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi States.

North-East: Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba States.

North-West: Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa and Kaduna States.

MAJOR LANGUAGES: English Language (Official), Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. Nigeria has over 500 Indigenous Languages.

RELIEF: The relief of Nigeria can be classified into two major regions; the highlands and the lowlands.

The highlands can be subdivided into the following:

The North-Central Plateau.
The Western Highlands

The Eastern Highlands, and

The Eastern Scarpland

The lowlands can be subdivided in the following:

The Sokoto Plains.
The Niger-Benue Trough.

The Chad Basin.

The interior coastal lowlands of Western Nigeria.

The lowlands and scarplands of Eastern Nigeria.

The coastal margins and swamps.

The cross River basin.

DRAINAGE:

ETHNIC GROUPS: Nigeria has about 200 ethnic groups. The largest ethnic groups are the Hausa-Fulani in the north, the Igbo in the southeast and the Yoruba in the southwest.

MAJOR RELIGION: Christianity, Islam and several Indigenous Languages.

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY: The Nigerian House of Assembly has two levels; the National House of Assembly and the States Houses of Assembly. The National House of Assembly comprises the Senate and the House of Representative. The Senate has 109 members, while the House of Representative has 360 members.

SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT: Nigeria practices the Democratic system of government which began in May 29th, 1999 during the transition from military to Civilian rule. Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was the first democratically elected President of Nigeria. President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is the third democratically elected president of Nigeria. He was sworn-in on May 29th, 2007.

PARTY SYSTEM: Nigeria operates a multi-party system of government. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Action Congress (AC) and the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) are the major political parties.

ECONOMY: The Nigerian economy depends heavily on the oil and gas sector. This sector dominates the Nigerian economy. It account for about 99 percent of export revenues and 85 percent of government revenues. The agricultural sector was formally the mainstream of Nigeria’s economy, but the government of Nigeria shifted attention from agriculture to oil and gas from the time of Oil boom in the 70s up till the present administration. Despite the country’s wealth , GDP per capital is still low and poverty is widespread with about 54 percent of the population living on less than 1 dollar per day.

LIFE EXPECTANCY: 46 years (Men), 47 years (Women).

MONETARY UNIT: 100 kobo = 1Naira.

MAIN EXPORT: Petroleum, Cocoa, Rubber, etc.

INTERNET DOMAIN: .ng.

INTERNATIONAL DIALING CODE: +234.