The building of the entity called Nigeria
today began on May 1, 1906 when the colonies
and protectorates of both Lagos and the Southern
Nigeria were amalgamated by Sir Walter
Egerton. The second phase was the amalgamation
(based on the Selbourne Committee’s
recommendation) of the Southern and Northern
Colonies and Protectorates on January 1,1914
by Frederick Lugard to form what is known as
Nigeria today. Before this period, inhabitants
were scattered all over the place in different tribes
and kingdoms existing under traditional political
and administrative institutions through which
their affairs were conducted and regulated. These
traditional politico-administrative systems and
institutions varied from one part of the country
to another because of well over 400 ethnic groups
(Kirk-Greene, 1967) that are inhabiting the land
area. The three dominant ethnic groups are the
Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West,
Ibo in the East and the Edo in the Mid-west.
The diverse nature of these ethnic groups has
always been a curse for Nigeria because the
relationship has always been a thorny one, the
foundation of what was built by the said
amalgamation(s). This relationship is being
traced to the amalgamation partly because of the
irreconcilable differences in vision, religion,
ethnic traits, culture, resource-endowment,
character, linguistic and develop-ment of the
ethnics. The second reason can be seen in the
fact that the hallmark of such co-existence is the
idea of a treaty and unfortunately the Nigerian
state was built without one.
As a result of the amalgamation, the north
and the south were divided into provinces to
facilitate the administration of the country, each
under a Provincial Resident. He was acting then
as mere representative of a higher authority.
Thus, between 1914 and 1946, one could say
that a unitary system of administration was in
force in Nigeria. This was the situation until the
1946 Constitution (otherwise called Richard
Constitution) was drawn regionalising the
country into Western, Northern and Eastern
regions for administrative convenience. The
earlier governors merely zoned Nigeria into
three, namely the Northern, Western, and
Eastern provinces but did not constitute them
into regional governments.

what about India and CHina you daft doofus.

oh no wait, nigeria is the ONLY country that is a combination of several previously independent entities right.

Um, isnt Russia like a billion times (okay, i exagerate) bigger than Nigeria?

The united states became a single entity from amalgamation of several territories.China is the world most populated and multi-racial country;india and russian are also bigger than nigeria.The only thing lacking in nigeria is patriotism and ethnic trust

Brazil is bigger than Nigeria.