|
Nigeria Regional Groupings
The broadest groupings of linked ethnic units are
regional.
Britain ruled most of the area of present-day Nigeria as
two
protectorates from 1900 to 1914, the southern and northern
protectorates each having separate regional
administrations.
These portions were joined finally under a single Nigerian
colonial government in 1914. But they retained their
regionally
based authorities, divided after 1914 into three regional
units.
The announcement of their imminent demise by the first
postcoup
military government in 1966 helped to set off violent
reactions
in the north against southerners who had settled in their
midst,
contributing to the outbreak of civil war.
Within each of the major northern and southern regions,
there
were significant subregions that combined ethnicity,
geography,
and history. What is generally referred to historically as
the
south included a western Yoruba-speaking area, an eastern
Igbo
area (the "g" is softly pronounced), a midsection of
related but
different groups, and a set of Niger Delta peoples on the
eastern
and central coastal areas. The north was widely associated
with
the Hausa-speaking groups that occupied most of the
region, but
the Kanuri predominated in the northeast, with a belt of
peoples
between the two; there were also important pastoral
nomadic
groups (mostly Fulani) that lived throughout the same
region. In the
middle belt (see Glossary)
were congeries of peoples
in an
area running east-west in the hills, along the southern
rim of
the north, dividing it from the larger region of Nigeria's
south.
On its northern side, the middle belt shaded culturally
into the
Muslim north. In contrast, on the southern side, its
peoples were
more similar to those of the south.
Data as of June 1991
|
