Europeans began exploration, trade, and missionary endeavors along the West Coast of Africa in the 15th century. The Portuguese were the first to do so, establishing trade with the Benin Kingdom, Lagos, and other regions along the coast. Portuguese dominance of these trade routes was overpowered in the 16th century by the British, French and Dutch, as the slave trade became very important. Slaves were taken from Nigeria to work on plantations in the Americas.

During this period, the territorial landscape known today as Nigeria lost great numbers of people to the slave trade. Some communities grew in size and power as commercial centers, while others suffered great losses through slave raids in which the indigenous people are hunt, captured and transported to European as slaves . Some estimate that over the course of the Atlantic Slave trade, more than 3.5 million slaves were shipped from Nigeria lands to the Americas.

The British dominated the slave trade off the Nigerian coast in the 18th century. But with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the
19th century, the emphasis in trade shifted from slaves to raw materials for factories. The Atlantic slave trade was outlawed by the british in 1808. Most of these raw materials needed in the new industries are wasting in large quantities in African's soils, this fueled the europeans desire to invade Africa. In the 19th century, Great Britain began to push into the hinterlands of Nigeria , meeting plenty of resistance/fight from the indigenous people along the way. The indigenous people were of no match to the superior fire arms of Great Britain.

It is of note that many other European countries contended for control of the territorial lands of Nigeria before Britain gained control of it. Lagos was the first part of Nigeria to be conquered and declare a British colony in 1861. From there, the strategy to conquer the additional portions of what would be Nigeria was planned and executed until nearly all of what is today Nigeria was under British control in 1905. The entire southern portion of Nigeria was conquered from approximately 1850 to 1897, and the northern part of the country from about 1900 to 1914.

As the British moved into the hinterland of Nigeria, they met a lot of resistance from the indigenous people living there. For example, Oyo and the Itsekiri kingdom in the south put up quite a fight
before submitting to Britain’s military forces. In the north, the British High Commissioner for Northern Nigeria, Captain Lugard was appointed and began conquering northern territories . His military forces met with great resistance in Sokoto, Kano, and many other cities. In these places, many people rallied around Islam as a way of resisting the British. Most of Northern Nigeria at this time was part of the Sokoto Caliphate, which was formed through a series of jihads in the 19th century. The British were often seen as infidels, and their conquest as possible signs of the end times. Ironically, many British colonizers thought that Africans were the infidels, who needed to be
converted to Christianity. In the end, the military resources and divide and conquer tactics of the British made them out to be the conquerors.

After the entire Northern and Southern Nigeria had been conquered into submission. Lord Lugard joined for the first time the north and south of Nigeria into a single colony in 1914. Lord Lugard set in place a system of indirect rule in Nigeria, which allowed for the British to rule through customary authorities and structures. This system tended to work best in the north, but ran into some problems in the south. Part of the problem was that the British actually invented customary “chiefs” in the south, who the general population did not necessarily acknowledge or respect.

The north and south of Nigeria were regions with very different histories, cultures, and religions. What joined them together was a common colonizer . Most of the north had been under Islamic rule through the Sokoto Caliphate, while converts to Islam in the south remained minimal. The early Christian missionaries decided to target their efforts on the non-Islamic south rather than the Islamic north. One of the consequences of
this strategy was that the people in the north did not have as many opportunities for Western-style education as people in the south, since missionaries did not establish many schools in the north. This lead to substantial differences between northern and southern populations.

As a colony, Nigeria experienced a good deal of growth in infrastructure and trade. Roads and railroads were built throughout the country. Communication became more rapid due to the telegraph and postal system. Cash crops such as
rubber, peanuts, and palm oil were promoted in rural areas, and were sold and exported. Also involved in export was the expanding mining industry. In general, a cash economy was becoming
increasingly important to Nigeria. This development and economic system that was set into place was mainly to benefit Europe, while exploiting the labor and resources of Nigeria. It is understandable, therefore, that there were significant resistance movements during the colonial period. The Nigerian people could see that the colonial system was not working for their benefit. They were taxed heavily and unable to move up the ladder to positions of privilege and power that the colonial administrators enjoyed. On many occasions, Nigerians resisted the colonial administration. For example, Igbo market women protested the British and their Nigerian collaborators’ attempts to impose taxes on their commerce in the Aba Women’s Tax Riots of 1929. A variety of unions and political associations also formed during the colonial period, as well as a growing group of intellectuals and professionals. These groups became major points of resistance to the colonial administration and formed a strong base in the nationalist movement for independence.
Along with 16 other African nations, Nigeria became an independent country in 1960. Although Nigeria did achieve its independence, the negative side of the political organizing at this time was that it was accentuating ethnic and regional differences, which would cause conflict in Nigeria for the years to come. The most tragic of these conflicts was the
Biafran civil war from 1967-1970 in which more than 1 million people died. Having suffered a massacre of Ibo people in the North, people in the Eastern Region of Nigeria (largely Ibo) tried to secede and become the Republic of Biafra. However, this region is rich in petroleum, making it valuable to the rest of Nigeria. Thus, the secession erupted into a 30-month war to see who would control this region. In the end, Nigeria maintained Biafra as a part of its territory.

Since Nigeria’s return to democracy, it is generally agreed upon that Nigerians experience more freedom, liberty, and respect for human rights than was the case under past regimes. For example,
people are not as afraid as they once were to speak out their opinions in public. Despite these positive developments, Nigeria has recently suffered from upsurges of conflict and violence from time to time. Some of these conflicts are related to natural resources, such as in the oil-rich Niger Delta. And other conflicts are over differences in religion or ethnic identity. For example, certain states in Northern Nigeria have implemented Muslim law (Shari’a) for Muslims, which has at times resulted in conflicts with non-Muslim residents of those states. Some of these new laws have also been sharply criticized as denying basic human rights to Nigerians. For example, the international community rose up in protest to the sentencing of a Nigerian Muslim woman named Amina Lawal to be stoned to death in 2002 because she bore a child out of wedlock. Fortunately, she was not stoned because her sentence was later quashed.

Nigerian Heads of State (1960 to the Present)

Name Years of Rule

President Azikiwe. 1960-1966
Johnson Thomas
Umananke

Aguiyi-Ironsi 1966

Yakubu "Jack"
Dan-Yumma
Gowon. 1966-1975

Murtala Ramat
Mohammed. 1975-1976

Olusegun
Obasanjo. 1976-1979

Alhaji Shegu
Shagari. 1979-1983

Muhammadu
Buhari. 1983-1985

Ibrahim
Babangida. 1985-1993


Ernest Shonekan. 1993

Sani Abacha. 1993-1998

Abdulsalam
Abubakar. 1998

Olusegun
Obasanjo. 1999 - 2007

Umaru Musa
Yar'Adua. 2007 -2010

Goodluck
Jonathan. 2010 - 2015


Muhammadu. 2015-
Buhari


https://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/curriculum/m25/activity3.php

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Nigeria

Hmmm

Kie!!!!
Too long