Nigeria Vocabulary

Sani Abacha

Oppressive Nigerian military dictator from 1993 to 1998 who came to power in a military coup

APC

Opposition political party formed in 2013 by merger of largest opposition parties and defections from the ruling People’s Democratic Party

Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe

Nigerian nationalist and independent Nigeria’s first head of state (1960-66)

Boko Haram

Islamic terrorist group based in northeastern Nigeria that since 2009 has launched a violent insurgency

Derivation formula

Formula for distributing percentage of oil revenues between nation and local government in Nigeria

Federal Character Principle

Nigerian quota system designed to ease ethnic tension by requiring the president to appoint ministers and civil servants from each Nigerian state

First Republic

Nigerian parliamentary democratic regimes that followed independence

Fourth Republic

Nigeria’s current presidential democratic regimes, established in 1999

Jonathan Goodluck

President of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015

Hausa and the Fulani

Predominantly Muslim ethnic group concentrated in northern Nigeria

House of Representatives

Lower house of Nigerian Parliament

Igbo

Predominately Christian ethnic group concentrated in southeast Nigeria

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Noted Nigerian playwright and environmental activist, executed in 1995 for his defense of the land and peoples of the Niger Delta

MEND

Militant separatist group form the Niger Delta

MOSOP

Ethnic association founded by Ken Saro-Wiwa to promote the interests of ethnic Ogoni in the Niger Delta

Muhammadu Bahri

Former military ruler and current democratically elected president of Nigeria (2015-2023)

NEEDS

A wide ranging Nigerian reform program designed to stem government corruption and enhance economic infrastructure

Niger Delta

World’s third largest wetland and source of Nigerian oil and economic and ethnic conflict

Olusegun Obasanjo

Military ruler from 1976 to 1979 and two-term elected president from 1999 to 2007

Patrimonialism

An arrangement whereby a ruler depends on a collection of supporters within the state who gain direct benefits in return for enforcing the ruler’s will

PDP (People’s Democratic Party)

Political party that has dominated Nigerian politics since its formation in 1998; it base was originally the Hausa Muslim ethnic group of northern Nigeria

Republic of Biafra

Igbo-dominated Eastern Region that tried, and failed, to secede from Nigeria in 1967

Resource Curse

Affliction caused by abundant natural resources distorting an economy by preventing diversification

Sani Abacha

Oppressive Nigerian military dictator from 1993 to 1998 who came to power in a military coup

Scramble for Africa

Late nineteenth-century race by European countries to expand influence and establish imperial control over the majority of African territory

Second Republic

Short-lived Nigerian democratic regimes, from 1979 to 1983, in which the former parliamentary system was replaced by a presidential system

Sharia

Religious law of Islam

Sokoto Caliphate

Caliphate Islamic empire founded in 1809 and centered in northern Nigeria

Third Republic

Democratic regime proposed by General Ibrahim Babangida in 1993; precluded by General Sani Abacha’s military coup in the same year, following annulled elections

Yoruba

Ethnic group largely confided to southwest Nigeria whose members are divided among Christian, Muslim, and local animist faiths

Zoning

A PDP system of presidential rotation; the party would alternate every two terms in nominating candidates from Nigeria’s north and south

Bola Ahmed Tinubu

New president elected 2023; All Progressive Congress (APC)