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NIGERIA-VOTE,FACTS
Nigeria: African giant struggling with poverty, unrest
LAGOS, Feb 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Nigeria, which elects a new president on
February 16, is Africa’s most populous nation and leading oil producer but is
dogged by poverty and insecurity.
– People and penury –
More than 190 million people live in the West African nation. The UN
estimates it will become the world’s third most-populated country by 2050.
Nigeria has about 250 ethnic and linguistic groupings, the three largest
being the mainly Muslim Hausa in the north, the mainly Christian Igbos in the
southeast, and the Yoruba in the southwest.
The population is roughly half Muslim and half Christian.
Nigeria overtook India as having the most people in extreme poverty last
year, according to the World Poverty Clock, with 87 million people estimated
to be living on less than $1.90 a day.
– Military regimes –
The area corresponding to modern-day Nigeria was historically home to
independent kingdoms and city-states, which were affected by the European
slave trade from the late 15th century.
British colonialists amalgamated its northern and southern protectorates
into a single entity — Nigeria — on January 1, 1914, and ruled until
independence in 1960.
Post-independence Nigeria has suffered six successful coups since January
1966, leading to decades of mostly military rule until civilian government
was restored in 1999.
A bid for secession in the mainly Igbo region of Biafra led to a civil war
that left about one million people dead from combat, illness and starvation
between 1967 and 1970.
Outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari, himself a former coup leader, in 2015
became the first opposition candidate in Nigerian history to defeat a sitting
president. – Boko Haram – A big threat comes from the radical Islamist group
Boko Haram, whose insurgency has devastated the northeast since 2009, killing
at least 27,000 people and displacing more than 1.8 million.
MORE/SSS/1157 hrs
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Buhari was elected on a pledge to defeat the group, after his predecessor
Goodluck Jonathan failed to do so.
In 2014 the group’s kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok brought the
violence to world attention. In late 2015 the army succeeded in driving the
jihadists from swathes of territory.
But since July 2018 Boko Haram’s Islamic State-backed faction, ISWAP, has
stepped up deadly attacks on military bases.
Nigeria is also marked by a conflict over land and resources between
mainly Christian farmers and nomadic mostly Muslim herders in which thousands
have died over the past years.
– Oil wealth – The country is Africa’s leading producer of oil, which
accounts for nearly 83 percent of its government revenues.
It also sits on the continent’s biggest reserves of natural gas.
However it is emerging slowly from recession between 2016 and 2017,
sparked by the plunging price of crude and attacks on its oil infrastructure.
In 2019 it is expected to record two percent growth, according to the
International Monetary Fund.
Decades of military rule saw under-investment in many sectors and allowed
corruption to flourish, leaving large parts of Nigeria with inadequate and
substandard infrastructure.
Efforts are being made to catch up but rapid population growth, poor
policy implementation, lack of good governance and persistent graft makes it
an uphill task. – Literature and Nollywood –
Nigeria has produced major authors such as Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first
Nobel Literature Prize laureate (1986), internationally acclaimed Chinua
Achebe and feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Its film industry, “Nollywood”, brings in billions in revenues and
produces some 2,000 films annually, mainly small productions on DVD sold by
street traders.
With the growing quality of local productions and the availability of
satellite channels, Nigeria’s cinema is exported across Africa.
Nigeria is also the home of Afrobeats, originally made popular by singer
and activist Fela Kuti, as well as a host of internationally acclaimed
artists. Football is the national sport.
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