Nigeria is the most populous black nation in the world and equally holds the record for the most populous country in africa, it's youth are third in popular slightly behind China and india,with a population of over 200milion citizens,Nigeria is perhaps the china of Africa in population. Located in the west african part of afrca,Nigeria is home to so many native languages and majorly three different tribes which are the yoruba,hausa and the igbos.
Early begining
Before the coming of the white men into Nigeria,these three tribes existed solely on their own without any clash or dispute,they were leaving on thier own,with the igbos mostly Christians, yoruba was practicing mixed religion and the hausa's were mostly moslems,each tribe carried out it's business peacefully until the coming of the british.Though Nigeria was colonised by the british, history has it still that the portuguese had their businesses here in Nigeria before the british came.After the coming of the british into Nigeria, the southern and the northern protectorates were amalgamated or joined together to form the country "Nigeria" the name Nigeria was derived from the niger river and then area was added to it peherps it could be said to be a river area.the colour of the Nigerian flag is white and green. Lord Fredrick lugard served as the first colonial leader of Nigeria.then so many others followed up to marcpherson and the rest of then who administered or rather did the bidding of the british government.With it's capital territory based in Calabar,one of the oil rich states in the country,the british through the leadership of Lord lugard appointed some people whom were mostly respected and held in higher ground by their people to help in running the government of Nigeria.
Independence era
During the time that these white men were ruling Nigeria some persons from Nigeria travelled abroad to complete their study,the likes of Nnamdi Azikiwe,Awolo and the rest of them so after the came back to Nigeria having completed their studies abroad,they started campaigning for the independence of Nigeria which britain later gave to them in 1960. In 1963 Nigeria became a republic nation.just before the independence Nigeria was know all over the world as one of the highest producer of palm oil.Palm oil was the major source of revenue of the Nigeria government.then came the oil boom which made the Nigerian government so surprised as the money being realised from oil was way more than that which they were Making from palm oil,the oil boom brought with it so many advantages and disadvantages which the latter supersedes, initially the oil boom brought more money at the disposal of the Nigerian government,it gave room for realistic projects to be carried out,but along the line the problem of unaccountability came in.
How it all started.
Just six years into our independence,those who were elected to rule started misappropriating the money meant for the good of the whole Nigeria populace,some of the big political heavy weights we had then were Nnamdi Azikiwe,obafemi Awolowo,Michael okpara,ahmadu bello,aboubaka tafawa belewa,chief sir samuel akintola and so many others whom I may not be able to remember.These politicians started smuggling the Nigerian currency outside the shores of the country until their bank accounts. As a result of what was going on,five soldiers from the Nigerian army took it upon themselvs to get rid of these calibre of men who were hell bent on dryiny the economy of the country.This coup was led by an igbo man by name major kaduna nzeogwu,Nmadi Azikiwe was the president while tafawabale was the prime minister then,the coup led by Nzeogwu had almost all the political heavyweights from other parts of the country except the igbos eliminated,major nzeogwu tagged it 'cleansing'immidiately after the coup the most senior officer in the Nigerian military in the person of Aguiyi ironsi took over and became the first military head of state, after six months due to the fact that it was tagged an igbo coup thier was yet another coup led by the Nigerian soldiers who were from the north and they succeeded in overthrowing and killing the military head of state then in the person of Aguiyi ironsi,this led to the becoming of head of states by Gowon. But then thier was already tension everywhere the easterners living in the northern states of kaduna,kano and so many other northern states.Meanwhile Gowon was already the military head of Nigeria and due to the fact that ojukwu was his friend,they both dined and wined together,they were even room mates chose him or had him appointed as the primier of the Eastern region,meanwhile the killing of those igbos in the northern states was becoming something else, ojukwu had to go and defend his people,he called on his friend and military head of states Gowon to interven and stop the incessant killing of the igbos by the hausa's,he believed solely that Gowon had the power to stop it but Gowon did little or nothing about it. Therefore the two parties decided to hold a meeting outside the shores of the country due to the fact that ojukwu was afraid of going to the west or the north since it was hot,so the settled for ghana and thier an agreement was reached,some of the things discussed there included
1) protection of the igbos and their properties in any part of the country
2) Control of resources by regions
3)how those in military would be promoted and so on and so forth.
After this agreement was reached Ojukwu and Gowon came back to Nigeria and Ojukwu expected Gowon to start acting based on the agreement they had in Ghana at a place called"Aburi accord"but the killing never stopped so as a result ojukwu then declared the eastern part of Nigeria as the republic of Biafra,this triggered Gowon and those who were in government as their was no place that talked about successionist in the Nigerian constitution.As a result the federal Government of Nigeria declared war on the biafrans,the war started in 1967 and lasted for 3years,during the course of the war so many countries were giving Nigeria ammunitions such as russia,britain and so many others but the biafra people being innovative in nature developed her amour within a few months with the Little resources they had,worthy of note is that the United States of america helped in providing relief and food items to the biafrans . Ojukwu was the one leading the war but before the war began he had released Nzeogwu who was imprisoned by the Nigerian government due to the coup he led. Also so many prisoners were freed then to help in the fight for the freedom of biafra,the biafrans even with the little ammunitions they had and they ones they took from the hands of dead Nigeria soldiers were able to pursue them as far as ore and where immediately heading to Lagos before the lost the battle as a result of betrayal. As the Nigerian government sensed what was happening the then adopted the use of hunger as a weapon in fighting the biafrans ,they had their food supplies cut off,then hunger set in and affected over 2million biafran children and women,so many children suffered from kwashiorkor as a result of this. Worthy of note is a biafrans colonel by name "achuzie"he was referred to as a cannibal,he was something else in battlefield,he used the famous biafra bomb named "ogbu nigwe and dealt ruthlessly with the Nigerian soldiers at headbrigde onitsha killing over hundreds of thousands of Nigerian soldiers in a day.Rumor has it his body melted bullets. Few months into the war major nzeogwu kaduna we killed,he was equally given a befitting burial by the Nigerian led by Gowon.As a result of the betrayal of the biafra struggle and seeing the need to escape, ojukwu left biafra for cote d'ivoire,it was after three days that it came to the minds of people that he had abandoned the war.The biafra soldiers later surrendered on the 13th of January1970.Though it was not done by ojukwu but by major general philip effong. They Nigerian government gave the biafran soldiers a warm welcome and Gowon in his speech stated that he has always seen biafra as brothers and at such was making use of the word rebels on them instead of calling them something else.Ojukwu was later pardoned and was given a befitting burial by the Nigerian government after his death in a London hospital inthe year 2011.
Early 2000s
Thirty years after the civil war between Nigeria and biafra ended,a man by name uwazurike from imo state took up the struggle for the sovereignty of the biafran people. He is the pioneer founder of massob,a group whose main interest is the restoration of the biafra nation.so many of it's members were killed in the eastern part of the country especially in anambra state during the time of peter Obi with obasanjo as the president of Nigeria.Then came thr ipob which is led by mazi Nnamdi kalu,the agitation for the emancipation of the biafra is still on.
During the last days of military form of rule,and the coming into power of the obasanjo regime, things were beginning to get bad again until during the time of umar musa yar'adua ,it was in his time that Nigeria experienced positive change.the prices of products were gradually beginning to become affoibu most Nigerians as the issue of petrol scarcity and buying of it at rediculous high price was beginning to be reviewed before the wicked hands if death took him away from us.
Present day
Nigeria is today in one of the worst recession it has ever witnessed, according to our financial advisors,the issue of the "endsars"which led to the death of so many people who took active part in the protests .What are we asking for? We are asking that the Nigerian government should
1)end bad governance
2)stop paying bogus salary to those we elected to represent us both in the upper and lower chamber
3) transparency
4) involvement of the youth in politics
5) creation of jobs for the teaming youths.
6)review of salary of the police force.
I believe that doing the things we have asked of them , Nigeria will not just Better but one of the best.
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If we want to talk about Nigeria we can spend days talking about it still we will not get to the end of the matter