First off, this West African country is big — nearly ten times the size of the United Kingdom and roughly as big as Texas and California put together. Not to mention that with some 242 million people, it's the world's sixth most populous country as well as Africa's most populous by a wide margin. It also boasts Africa´s third largest economy, and while oil and gas are by far its biggest drivers, tourism is a small but significant and growing sector of the economy (about four percent at the moment), thanks to enough cultural, historical, and natural riches to keep visitors coming back multiple times.
Nigeria´s history goes back deep — the Nok culture was casting terracotta sculptures more than 2,000 years ago, and powerful kingdoms like Benin, Oyo, Kanem-Bornu, and the Sokoto Caliphate rose and fell long before Britain cobbled together the "Nigeria" we know today, colonizing it beginning in the 1860s granting independence in 1960. That colonial stitching-together of hundreds of ethnic groups — Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, and many more — explains both Nigeria's dazzling cultural richness and some of its enduring political tensions. (And by the way, the country´s name was coined by a British journalist in 1897 after the Niger River which flows through the country.)
Replies