Nigeria's Independence
On 1 October 1960 Nigeria became independent from Britain, a federation uniting its Hausa-Fulani north, Yoruba southwest, and Igbo southeast — ethnic and religious communities with profoundly different political cultures that British colonial administration had governed through separate indirect-rule structures. The Northern People's Congress won the first federal elections, forming government in alliance with the NCNC. Within six years, military coups and the disputed 1964-65 elections had fractured the civilian political order, and the Igbo-majority Eastern Region would declare independence as Biafra in 1967. Nigeria's post-independence trajectory illustrated a structural problem common across sub-Saharan Africa: state borders inherited from colonial demarcation united populations whose loyalties were ethnic and regional rather than national.
- Year: 1960 CE
- Category: Independence
