Nigeria

Nigeria (/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/) About this soundlisten)), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, is the largest city in Nigeria and the continent of Africa.

Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC marking the first internal unification in the country. The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in the 1999 presidential election; the 2015 election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.

Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population. The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level. Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion and is home to some of the world's largest Muslim and Christian populations, simultaneously. Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south; indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, are in the minority.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh-most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 206 million. Its economy is the largest in Africa, the 26th-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and 25th-largest by PPP. Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy and is considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank. It is a regional power in Africa, a middle power in international affairs, and is an emerging global power. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and OPEC. It is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, and is one of the Next Eleven economies.

Visa requirements	Tourist / Visitor Visa: Passport valid for at least 6 months Completed visa application form Two recent passport size photographs A Letter of Invitation from a company/host in Nigeria accepting immigration responsibility Visitors/Tourists are required to show evidence of sufficient funds Nigeria Immigration Service Visa Payment Receipt and Visa Acknowledgement Receipt. For more information on this visit https://portal.immigration.gov.ng
Languages spoken	English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba Languages
Currency used	Naira (NGN)
Area (km2)	923.768 km²
Country name	Nigeria
Source	Wikipedia

Sports & nature

Sport in Nigeria
Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on Six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and most recently in 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.

The nation's 1993 cadet team from produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.

Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field. Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions. In March 2021, the global governing body FIBA ranked Nigeria as Africa's top men's basketball nation. Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania. Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu, Olumide Oyedeji and others. The Nigerian Premier League has become one of the biggest and most-watched basketball competitions in Africa. The games have aired on Kwese TV and have averaged a viewership of over a million people.

Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-person team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country. In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship. In 2018, the Nigerian Curling Federation was established to introduce a new sport to the country with the hopes to get the game apart of the curriculum at the elementary, high school, and university level. At the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway, Nigeria won their first international match beating France 8–5.

Nightlife info

Music
Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, and amapiano which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.

Many late 20th-century musicians such as Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music. JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.

Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists. In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja. Additionally, the first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".

Cuisine
Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs, and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.

Culture and history info

The History of Nigeria can be traced to settlers trading across the middle East and Africa as early as 1100 BC. Numerous ancient African civilisations settled in the region that is known today as Nigeria, such as the Kingdom of Nri, the Benin Empire, and the Oyo Empire. Islam reached Nigeria through the Borno Empire between (1068 AD) and Hausa States around (1385 AD) during the 11th century, while Christianity came to Nigeria in the 15th century through Augustinian and Capuchin monks from Portugal. The Songhai Empire also occupied part of the region. The history of Nigeria has been crucially affected by the transatlantic slave trade, which started in Nigeria in the late 15th century. The first slave-trading post used by the British and Portuguese was Badagry, a coastal harbour. Local brokers provided them with slaves, escalating conflicts among the ethnic groups in the region and disrupting older trade patterns through the Trans-Saharan route.

Lagos was invaded by British forces in 1851 and formally annexed in the year 1865. Nigeria became a British protectorate in 1901. The period of colonisation lasted until 1960, when an independence movement succeeded. Nigeria first became a republic in 1963, but succumbed to military rule three years later, after a bloody coup d'état. A separatist movement later formed the Republic of Biafra in 1967, leading to the three-year Nigerian Civil War. Nigeria became a republic once again after a new constitution was written in 1979. However, the republic was short-lived, as the military seized power again and ruled for ten years. A new republic was planned to be established in 1993, but was aborted by General Sani Abacha. Abacha died in 1998 and a fourth republic was later established the following year, which ended three decades of intermittent military rule.

The culture of Nigeria is shaped by Nigeria's multiple ethnic groups. The country has 527 languages, seven of them are extinct. Nigeria also has over 1150 dialects and ethnic groups. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausas predominantly in the north, the Yorubas predominate in the southwest, and the Igbos in the southeast. There many other ethnic groups with sizeable population across the different parts of the country. The Kanuri people are located in the northeast part of Nigeria, the Tiv people of north central and the Efik - Ibibio. The Edo people are most frequent in the region between Yorubaland and Igboland. Many of the Edo tend to be Christian. This group is followed [clarification needed] by the Ibibio/Annang/Efik people of the coastal south southern Nigeria and the Ijaw of the Niger Delta.

Nigeria's other ethnic groups, sometimes called 'minorities', are found throughout the country but especially in the north and the middle belt. The traditionally nomadic Fulani can be found all over West and Central Africa. The Fulani and the Hausa are predominantly Muslim while the Igbo are predominantly Christian and so are the Efik, Ibibio, and Annang people. The Yoruba are equally likely to be either Christian or Muslim. Indigenous religious practices remain important to all of Nigeria's ethnic groups, and frequently these beliefs are blended with Christian beliefs, a practice known as syncretism.