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Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. [13] [14] [15] The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together constituting over 60% of the total population. [16]
[13] [14] [15] Nigeria became independent in 1960. From 1967 to 1970, the "Biafra War" raged in the south-east - one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times. After three decades mostly of increasingly restrictive military dictatorships, Nigeria became a democratic federal republic based on the US model in 1999.
Annual rainfall totals are low. The rainy season in the northern part of Nigeria lasts for three to four months (June to September). The rest of the year is hot and dry with temperatures climbing as high as 40 °C (104.0 °F) . Potiskum, Yobe State in the northeast of Nigeria recorded Nigeria's lowest ever temperature of 2.8 °C (37.0 °F).
Nigeria's inflation rate rose to 15.63 per cent in December 2021 compared to 15.40 per cent in November, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on January 17, 2022. The statistics office said the prices of goods and services, measured by the Consumer Price Index, increased by 15.63 per cent in December 2021 when compared to December 2020.
Over 1.2 million people living in Nigeria (0.5% of its total population, or 1 in every 200 people living in Nigeria) are from a continent other than Africa. There are 100,000 people from the United States, [14] 75,000 are from Lebanon, [15] 60,000 are from China [16] and 16,000 are from the United Kingdom. [17]
The Bini people [15] [16] are most frequent in the region between Yorubaland and Igboland. [17] [18] Nigeria's other ethnic groups, sometimes called 'minorities', are found throughout the country but especially in the north and the middle belt. The traditionally nomadic Fulani can be found all over West and Central Africa. [19]
Topography of Nigeria. Nigeria is a large country in West Africa just north of the equator. It is bounded by Benin to the west, Niger to the north, Cameroon to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The country consists of several large plateaus separated by the valleys of the two major rivers, the Niger and the Benue, and their tributaries.
The history of Nigeria before 1500 has been divided into its prehistory, Iron Age, and flourishing of its kingdoms and states. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP ( Middle Pleistocene ). [ 1 ]