Leaving Nigeria Nigeria is a land of contrasts or differences There is a small number of rich people who live in cities But there is also a number of poor people Their quality of life is much lower More than 186 million people live in Nigeria There are about 500 different ethnic groups but there are four main groups Over the last 50 years there has been a lot of fighting in Nigeria There was a civil war for three years between 1967 and 1970 After that the country was ruled by the military The rulers kept the country’s wealth for themselves They also punished anyone who did not agree with them Niger Chad Nigeria Abuja Nigeria is a country in Africa It shares borders with Benin Niger Chad and Cameroon Central African Republic Cameroon Mali Burkina Faso Benin Togo Ghana Gulf of Guinea 4
UN Rights of the Child Every child has rights Rights are privileges and freedoms that are protected by law Refugees have the right to special protection and help The United Nations UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a document that lists the rights of children all over the world Think about these rights as you read this book In Nigeria the roads are very poor and difficult to drive on It is not easy to travel around the country Many Nigerians have left their homes to escape violence Some fled to neighboring African countries They are refugees Refugees flee their homeland because of unsafe conditions Refugees are different from immigrants Immigrants choose to leave to look for better opportunities in another country Around 1 9 million Nigerians have fled their homes but remained in the country These are internally displaced people IDPs Many IDPs live in camps like this one in northern Nigeria 5
My Homeland Nigeria Nigeria is in West Africa It has huge grassy plains mountains areas of rain forest and swamp land Its two main cities are Abuja and Lagos but most people live in villages Many ancient cultures lived in Nigeria thousands of years ago The people of modern Nigeria can trace their history back to these cultures Today more than 100 languages are spoken in Nigeria Nigeria’s flag Abuja Abuja is the capital of Nigeria Lagos 6
The three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa the Yoruba and the Igbo The Hausa people live in the north They follow the religion of Islam This means they are Muslim The Yoruba people live in the southwest They follow Indigenous African beliefs The Igbo people mainly live in the southeast They follow the Christian religion Nigeria was controlled by Britain until 1960 when Nigeria became independent But the different ethnic and religious groups in the government could not agree on how to rule the country The southeastern part of Nigeria wanted to form its own country This led to a civil war from 1967 to 1970 After the war ended the country was still unstable Today the government finds it very hard to unite its many religious and ethnic groups Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria Nigeria’s Story in Numbers Others 26 These are the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria Ijaw 10 Igbo 18 Hausa 25 Yoruba 21 7
