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Nigeria

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Overview

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, seventh most populous in the world, and the most populous majority-black country in the world. Alhough most Americans’ knowledge of Nigeria is limited to a familiarity with some of the many Nigerian athletes who have come to the U.S. to play, including NBA Hall of Fame great Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigeria is a major source of U.S. oil imports. Over the centuries of the slave trade, Nigeria was one of the leading suppliers of slaves to the New World, including the U.S. Thus millions of Americans have Nigerian descent, including the actor, singer and political activist Paul Robeson, whose parents were both born in Nigeria. 

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Basic Information

Lay of the Land: Nigeria is a densely settled land located on the southern bulge of West Africa. Slightly larger than California, Oregon and Washington combined, Nigeria is bordered by Benin to the west, Niger to the north, Chad and Cameroon to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. Comprised of 36 states and a federal capital territory, Nigeria’s geography ranges from the wet and humid mangrove swamps of the south to the fringe of the Great Sahara Desert in the north. Indeed, perhaps the most important geographical feature of Nigeria is the difference between the savannah and semi-desert of the North, where Muslims predominate, and the forested and wet south, where Christians are in the majority. In southeastern Nigeria, a morass of brackish rivers and humid palm-studded islands form the Niger Delta. Here a land once famed for its palm oil is now producing another kind of oil–petroleum–and the oil derricks on land and offshore daily pump millions of barrels of the black gold. The entire coastal part of the country consists of a hot and humid belt of mangrove swamps, which merge in the interior into a dense rain forest, and then into open woodland and savanna farther north. In the far north, vegetation all but ceases as the fringe of the Great Sahara Desert is reached. The capital, Abuja, which is home to nearly 800,000 people, was built near the country’s center during the 1980s and became the capital in 1991. The former capital and Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, is Africa’s second largest city, after Cairo, Egypt, with a population of nearly 8 million (15 million, counting the entire metropolitan area). 

Population: 155.2 million
Religions: Christian 45.5%, Muslim (mostly Sunni) 45.4%, Ethnoreligious 8.7%
Ethnic Groups: Hausa and Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%. There are more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Languages: Hausa 13.1%, Igbo 12.7%, Fulfulde (Adamawa, Benin-Togo, Nigerian) 6.6%, Kanuri (Central, Manga) 2.2%, Tiv 1.5%, Ibibio 1.2%, Anaang 0.9%, English 0.7%. The National or Official languages are Edo, Efik, Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Central Kanuri, Yoruba, and English. There are 514 living languages in Nigeria, many of which have only a few thousand speakers.
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History

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that human habitation dates back to at least 9000 BC. The area around the Benue and Cross River is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BCE and the 2nd millennium. Before the rise of European influence in the area around 1500, much of modern Nigeria was comprised of states identified with still predominant ethnic groups, including Igbo Kingdom of Nri, the Yoruba kingdoms, the Edo Kingdom of Benin and the Hausa city states. The first of these was the Nri Kingdom, founded in the tenth century in North Central Igboland, which is probably the oldest area of Igbo settlement and is considered the homeland of the Igbo people and the cradle of their culture. The Kingdom of Nri was unique in that its leader, a priest-king called the eze Nri, did not exercise military power. Instead, the kingdom wielded religious and political influence, managing trade and diplomacy on behalf of the Igbo people, and expanding by force of persuasion, as villages and regions joined the kingdom. It also gave safe haven to outcasts from other communities and to runaway slaves, whom the kingdom set free upon arrival. Nri influence peaked between the 12th and 15th centuries. The growing penetration of the European slave trade eroded Nri power, which declined notably in the 18th century, though the kingdom survived formally until 1911, when the British forced the eze Nri to abdicate.

 
Historically the Igbo have been the dominant group on the east bank of the Niger, while the Yoruba predominate west of the Niger. Of mixed origin, the Yoruba grew by assimilating periodic waves of migrants. Starting in the 8th century CE, many Yoruba villages coalesced into territorial city-states, which eventually formed a Yoruba kingdom with its capital at the city of Ife. This kingdom flourished between 1100 CE and 1700, but by 1500 the Oyo Empire, which reached its peak between 1700 and 1900, had become the dominant Yoruba military and political power. The nearby splinter Yoruba kingdom of Benin was also a powerful force between 1300 and 1850.
 
In northern Nigeria, the Hausa people founded several Hausa Kingdoms, which were collections of independent city-states situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad. The Hausa Kingdoms rose in the 13th century as trading centers competing with other regional empires. Except for minor alliances, the Hausa city-states functioned independently, because rivalries inhibited the formation of one central authority. The Hausa Kingdoms originated as seven states sharing a mythology that Abuyazidu, a prince of Baghdad, came to Hausaland, killed a monstrous serpent that had terrorized the people, and was rewarded by being made the consort of the Queen, Magajiya Daurama. Their seven grandchildren became the founders of the seven Hausa states, which were Daura, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Gobir, Rano and Biram. The growth and conquest of the Hausa resulted in the founding of seven additional states, whose rulers also soon traced their lineage to a concubine of Abuyazidu. These states adopted many of the customs and institutions of the first seven Hausa Kingdoms, who nevertheless considered them to be non-Hausa people. These states included Zamfara, Kebbi, Yauri, Gwari, Kororafa, Nupe and Ilorin. 
 
During the 16th century the Songhai Empire, centered outside of Nigeria at its capital in Timbuktu, reached its peak, stretching from the Senegal and Gambia rivers in the west and incorporating part of Hausaland in the east. At the same time, the Sayfawa dynasty of Kanem-Bornu reconquered its Kanem homeland and extended control west to Hausa cities not under Songhai authority. Largely because of Songhai's influence, there was a blossoming of Islamic learning and culture. Although Songhai collapsed in 1591 under the onslaught of an invading Moroccan army, Morocco soon lost control, and the empire and various provinces, including the Hausa states, became independent again. Kanem-Bornu reached its high point during the late 16th century, and until the 18th century dominated northern Nigeria. The main cause of Borno’s decline was a pair of severe droughts that struck the Sahel and savanna in the middle of the 18th century. 
 
Although the peoples of Nigeria have a long history, it was British imperialism that created Nigeria as a single entity by forcibly joining diverse peoples and regions into an artificial political entity named by the wife of a British administrator. Thus in the north, Muslim Hausa and Fulani predominate, while in the south, the Yoruba, who are closely split between Muslims and Christians, and the mainly Christian Igbo form the majority, and conflicts between and among these groups have played a leading role in the development of modern Nigeria. British influence over Nigeria was rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Starting in the 16th century, European demand for African slaves to work the plantations of the New World became a prominent feature of the Nigerian political economy, and though the Igbo continued to resist slavery, slaves became the major export from the Nigerian coast for 300 years. Nigerian polities maintained their key position in the slave trade through its demise in the nineteenth century. Slightly more slaves originated in the Nigerian coast than from Angola in the 18th century, while in the 19th century about 30 percent of all slaves sent across the Atlantic were from Nigeria. Over the period of the whole trade, more than 3.5 million slaves were taken from Nigeria to the Americas. Most of these slaves were Igbo and Yoruba, with significant concentrations of Hausa, Ibibio, and other ethnic groups.
 
In the 18th century, two states--Oyo and the Aro confederacy--were responsible for most of the slaves sent from Nigeria. By 1800 Oyo governed much of southwestern Nigeria and neighboring parts of the modern Republic of Benin, though a series of power struggles, assassinations, and constitutional crises in the eighteenth century led to Oyo’s collapse in the 1820s and a resulting period of civil war among the Yoruba. The Aro confederacy was under the leadership of the Aro, an Igbo clan of mixed Igbo and Ibibio origins. Starting in the late 17th century, the Aro built a network of alliances with many of the Igbo clans, basing their commercial empire on a series of fairs and periodic markets throughout the lands of allied peoples. The Aro dominated these markets and enjoyed a near monopoly of the slave trade after the collapse of Oyo in the 1820s.
 
The seventeenth and eighteenth century European contest to establish military and commercial posts on the West African coast was part of the wider struggle for trade and empire in the Atlantic. To compete with the Dutch, the British formed national trading companies, such as the Company of the Royal Adventurers, chartered in 1660 and succeeded in 1672 by the Royal African Company. By the end of the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), Britain had become the dominant commercial power in West Africa. Britain maintained its economic power in Nigeria via military power, strategic alliances, and the collaboration of indigenous rulers. During the nineteenth century, Britain focused primarily on opening new markets for its manufactured goods in West Africa and expanding the production and export of palm oil and ivory. By 1850, British commercial interests were gaining dominance in Lagos and the Niger River delta, leading to the initiation of British administration in Nigeria in 1861, when Lagos became a crown colony. Over the next half-century, by means of a series of steps designed to benefit British commercial interests and military power, by 1906 present-day Nigeria was under British control as a formal part of the British Empire.
 
Colonies like Nigeria played a very specific role in the political economy of the British Empire, which exploited their raw materials, minerals, and foodstuffs to support British industrial development. Thus Britain encouraged the planting of tropical export crops over the cultivation of food crops, and attempted to turn Nigerians into consumers of British manufactured goods. Between the 1890s and World War II, the empire built a railway and roads system. These developments, along with the introduction of the pound sterling as the legal medium of exchange, subsidized the export trade in tin, cotton, cocoa, groundnuts, and palm oil. 
 
British rule also worsened conflicts rooted in class, region, and ethnicity in Nigeria, as British colonial administrators played various groups off against one another. In the 1920s, Nigerian nationalism first emerged, dominated by Herbert Macauley, often referred to as the father of Nigerian nationalism. His Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) dominated elections in Lagos from its founding in 1922, but remained almost entirely a Lagos party. Nationalist sentiment grew between 1930 and 1944, when the Great Depression and British involvement in World War II caused the real incomes of those Nigerians who participated in the money economy to fall as Britain's investment, imports, and government spending in Nigeria dropped. A nationalist movement emerged, at first under the leadership of native elite business people and professionals who expected to gain politically and economically from independence. By 1938, the National Youth Movement (NYM), led by H.O. Davies and Nnamdi Azikiwe, overtook the NNDP in national elections, buoyed by the popularity of its more radical orientation. During World War II, moreover, labor militancy and activity grew in response to the harsh policies of the colonial government, as union membership increased sixfold and workers sustained a strike by 43,000 workers in mid-1945 that lasted more than forty days.  Thus working class Nigerians, along with ambitious Nigerian entrepreneurs and professionals, joined forces and channeled their economic and political grievances into a nationalist movement. 
 
Starting in 1946, when the British promulgated a new constitution in Nigeria, momentum toward independence became inevitable. Although it kept real power in the hands of the British Governor and his appointed executive council, the new constitution expanded the elected Legislative Council, which was empowered to deliberate on matters affecting the entire country. It also established three semi-autonomous regions (North, Southeast, and Southwest), each with its own legislative body to consider local questions and advise the lieutenant governors. The introduction of federalism served as a recognition of Nigeria's diversity. 
 
Ethnic divisions intensified in the 1950s not only between the Muslim north and the Christian south, but also between the Yoruba of the southwest and the Igbo of the southeast. The latter cleavage was intensified as they competed for control of the political machinery, which in turn meant access to patronage over government jobs, money for local development, trade licenses, market permits, government contracts, and even higher education scholarships. This sort of ethnic-based political favoritism created bitter resentments throughout the country.
 
On October 1, 1960, by an act of the British Parliament, Nigeria became an independent country within the British Commonwealth. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a longtime Igbo political leader, became the first Governor General of Nigeria, while the Muslim Abubakar Tafawa Balewa continued to serve as the Prime Minister of a now completely sovereign government. The governor general was appointed by the British monarch as head of state on the advice of the Nigerian prime minister. The governor general was responsible for appointing the prime minister and for choosing a candidate from among contending leaders when there was no parliamentary majority. Otherwise, the governor general's office was essentially ceremonial. In 1963, however, Nigeria proclaimed a republic, and Azikiwe became Nigeria’s first president. 
 
Under the First Republic, Nigeria’s political parties took on the identities and ideologies of the three regions. The Northern People's Party (NPC) represented the interests of the predominantly Muslim Hausa/Fulani Northern Region, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) represented the predominantly Igbo Eastern Region, and the Action Group (AG) dominated the Yoruba Western Region. At Nigeria's independence, the Northern Region gained more seats in parliament than the Eastern and Western regions combined, which cemented Northern dominance of Nigerian politics for many years, caused resentment among southern Nigerians, and led the country into a period of political chaos culminating in a bloody military coup on January 15, 1966, that took the lives of Prime Minister Balewa and many others. This coup, however, greatly angered northern Nigerians, who alleged it to have been an Igbo plot, though the evidence is not conclusive. Acting on these beliefs, northern Nigerian officers executed a counter-coup on July 29, 1966, that put a northerner in power and led to bloody anti-Igbo pogroms in the north that killed an estimated 30,000 Igbo. 
 
On May 30, 1967, the military governor of the Igbo-dominated southeast, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, citing the northern massacres and electoral fraud, proclaimed the secession of the south-eastern region from Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra, an independent nation. Although the Biafrans scored a few early stunning successes, the resulting civil war, which raged until January 13, 1970, devastated Biafra, where the war was mainly fought, and resulted in a humanitarian crisis leading to the deaths of three million people. 
 
After the civil war, the military resumed power over the government of Nigeria. Following the assassination of the military Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed in 1976, his successor, General Olusegun Obasanjo, initiated a process to end military rule in 1979. A new constitution was drafted, which replaced the parliamentary system of government with an American-type Presidential system. The 1979 constitution also mandated that political parties and cabinet positions reflect the "federal character" of the nation, for example, political parties were required to be registered in at least two-thirds of the states, and each state was required to produce at least one cabinet member. In the widely monitored 1979 election, Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the northern-based National Party of Nigeria was elected President of the Second Republic. The Second Republic, however, was overthrown on New Year's Eve 1983, by a coup led by General Muhammadu Buhari, who claimed that of corruption and administrative incompetence were the reasons for the coup. The Buhari government was peacefully overthrown by its third-ranking member, General Ibrahim Babangida, in August 1985. Babangida claimed misuse of power, human rights violations by key military officers, and the government's inability to deal with Nigeria's worsening economic crisis as reasons for the takeover. President Babangida soon restored freedom of the press, released political detainees being held without charge, and promised to return the country to civilian rule by 1990, which was later extended until January 1993. The presidential election was finally held on June 12, 1993 with the inauguration of the new president scheduled to take place August 27, 1993, the eighth anniversary of President's Babangida coming to power.
 
In the historic 1993 presidential elections, which most observers deemed to be Nigeria's fairest, early returns indicated that wealthy Yoruba businessman M.K.O. Abiola won a decisive victory. However, on June 23, Babangida annulled the election, throwing Nigeria into turmoil and rioting in several thousands were killed before Babangida agreed to hand power to an interim government led by Ernest Shonekan, a prominent nonpartisan businessman. Although Shonekan was to rule until elections scheduled for February 1994, Defense Minister Sani Abacha seized power and forced Shonekan's resignation on November 17, 1993. Abacha dissolved all democratic institutions, replaced elected governors with military officers, and while promising restoration of civilian rule he refused to announce a transitional timetable until 1995. 
 
Although Abacha was initially welcomed by many Nigerians disenchantment grew rapidly, and on June 11, 1994, Abiola declared himself president and went into hiding until his arrest on June 23. In response petroleum workers called a strike demanding that Abacha release Abiola and hand over power to him. Other unions joined the strike, bringing economic life around Lagos and the southwest to a standstill. In August the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) openly discussed calling a general strike, in response to which Abacha dismissed the leadership of the NLC and the petroleum unions, placed the unions under appointed administrators, and arrested numerous labor leaders.
 
On October 1, 1995, Abacha announced the timetable for a 3-year transition to civilian rule. Only five political parties were approved by the regime and voter turnout for local elections in December 1997 was under 10%. Abacha died of heart failure on June 8, 1998 and was replaced by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. The military Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) under Abubakar commuted the sentences of those accused in the alleged coup plots during the Abacha regime, released almost all known civilian political detainees, and took steps to restore worker rights and freedom of association for trade unions. In August 1998 Abubakar appointed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which successfully held elections for local government councils, state legislators and governors, the national assembly, and president, between December 1998 and February 1999. For all but the local elections, only three parties fulfilled the requirements to contest the following elections, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the All People's Party (APP), and the predominantly Yoruba Alliance for Democracy (AD). Former military head of state Olusegun Obasanjo, freed from prison by Abubakar, ran as a civilian candidate and won the presidential election. Before the May 29, 1999 inauguration of the new civilian president, the PRC promulgated a new constitution based largely on the suspended 1979 constitution, including provisions for a bicameral legislature and directly elected president.
 
After Obasanjo had served eight years, he was succeeded by Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, in 2007 elections whose results were largely rejected as having been rigged in Yar'Adua's favor. I   n response, Yar'Adua proposed a government of national unity, to which member of all three parties did in fact participate. Following Yar'Adua death on 5 May, 2010, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan became the third president of the 4th Republic. On April 18, 2011, Jonathan won his own term as President of Nigeria. 
 
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History of U.S. Relations with Nigeria

Noted Nigerian-Americans:

Athletes

Nnamdi Asomugha—NFL football player for the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles. His parents were born in Nigeria.

Hakeem Olajuwon—NBA basketball player; most valuable player in 1994. Born in Nigeria, played for the University of Houston and represented the United States at the 1996 Olympics.

Oguchi Onyewu—Soccer player on U.S. national team. His parents were born in Nigeria.

 

Others

Sade Baderinwa—News anchor at WABC-TV in New York. Her father is Nigerian and her mother German.

John Ogbu (1039-2003)—Anthropologist. Born in Nigeria, he was a proponent of the “Acting White” theory that many African-Americans perform below expectations in school because academic achievement is regarded by their peers as “acting white.”

Vop Osili–Indiana Secretary of State. Born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and an American mother.

Paul Robeson (1898-1976)—Singer, actor and political activist. His father, William Drew Robeson, was of Igbo origin and was born into slavery in North Carolina.

Victor Ukpolo–Chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans. Born in Nigeria, he came to the United States at the age of 23.

The US established relations with Nigeria upon that country’s independence in September 1960. Relations between the two countries were generally good, although following the annulment of the June 12, 1993, elections the United States (and others) imposed sanctions on Nigeria, including travel restrictions on government officials and suspension of arms sales and military assistance. Additional sanctions were imposed as a result of Nigeria’s failure to gain full certification for its counter-narcotics efforts. Since the restoration of basic democracy in Nigeria in 1999, relations have continued to improve, and cooperation on many important foreign policy goals, such as regional peacekeeping, has been excellent.

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Current U.S. Relations with Nigeria

Noted Nigerian-Americans:

Athletes
Nnamdi Asomugha—NFL football player for the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles. His parents were born in Nigeria.
Hakeem Olajuwon—NBA basketball player; most valuable player in 1994. Born in Nigeria, played for the University of Houston and represented the United States at the 1996 Olympics.
Oguchi Onyewu—Soccer player on U.S. national team. His parents were born in Nigeria.
 
Others
Sade Baderinwa—News anchor at WABC-TV in New York. Her father is Nigerian and her mother German.
John Ogbu (1039-2003)—Anthropologist. Born in Nigeria, he was a proponent of the “Acting White” theory that many African-Americans perform below expectations in school because academic achievement is regarded by their peers as “acting white.”
Vop Osili–Indiana Secretary of State. Born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and an American mother.
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)—Singer, actor and political activist. His father, William Drew Robeson, was of Igbo origin and was born into slavery in North Carolina.
Victor Ukpolo–Chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans. Born in Nigeria, he came to the United States at the age of 23.
 
The Nigerian government lent strong diplomatic support to U.S. Government anti-terrorism efforts in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Nigeria has officially condemned the terrorist attacks and supported military action against the Taliban and al-Qaida. Nigeria has also worked to forge an anti-terrorism consensus among states in Sub-Saharan Africa. President Yar'Adua visited President George W. Bush at the White House on December 13, 2007. During her first official trip to Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Nigeria on August 12, 2009.
 
An estimated one million Nigerians and Nigerian-Americans live, study, and work in the United States, while over 25,000 Americans live and work in Nigeria.
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Where Does the Money Flow

The discovery of oil in the 1930s led eventually to the fact that Nigeria’s economy is dominated by the black gold. A member of OPEC since 1971, Nigeria is the 12th largest petroleum producer in the world, the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. Nevertheless, the majority of Nigerians live in poverty, as corruption and financial mismanagement have long been an unfortunate aspect of life in Nigeria. Petroleum accounts for 40% of GDP and 80% of Government revenues. Nigeria has a large trade surplus with the U.S., averaging $25.3 billion from 2008 to 2010, based entirely on crude oil, which dominates US imports from Nigeria, accounting for $26.7 billion annually in purchases by the United States from 2008-2010, or 91.4% of the three-year total. The only other sizeable imports are also petroleum related, including liquefied petroleum gases ($3.6 billion or 4%), fuel oil and other petroleum products ($3.3 billion or 3.8%), and natural gas ($339 million or .04%). In contrast, US exports to Nigeria mainly consist of the products of American agriculture and industry, led by wheat ($804.4 million or 19.9%), new and used passenger cars ($649.5 million or 16%), “other” petroleum products ($522.8 million or 12.9%), industrial engines and other machinery ($414.5 million or 10.3%), drilling and oilfield equipment ($217.5 million or 5.4%), industrial engines ($145.8 million or 3.6%), and trucks, buses and special purpose vehicles ($116.4 million or 2.9%).

 
The US gave foreign aid in the amount of $616.1 million to Nigeria in 2010, $471.2 million of it (76.5%) pursuant to Global Health and Child Survival (GHCS) program, which is managed by USAID. The 2011 budget request seeks an increase to $647.7 million, though GHCS funding is to remain the same. 
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Controversies
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Human Rights

Run by popularly elected officials for only about 21 years of its fifty-year existence, Nigeria’s human rights record is spotty at best, especially during those years when the military was in charge of the country. The Abacha regime (1993-1998), for example, enforced authority through the federal security system, which committed numerous human rights abuses, including infringements on freedom of speech, assembly, association, travel, and violence against women. More recently, the State Department’s 2010 Human Rights report on Nigeria found many problems, including abridgement of citizens' right to change their government; politically motivated and extrajudicial killings; torture, rape, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees, and suspects; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary and judicial corruption; infringement on citizens' privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and movement; official corruption and impunity; violence and discrimination against women; the killing of children suspected of witchcraft; female genital mutilation (FGM); child abuse and child sexual exploitation; societal violence; ethnic, regional, and religious discrimination and violence; vigilante killings; trafficking in persons for the purpose of prostitution and forced labor; discrimination against persons with disabilities; discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; child labor; forced and bonded labor; and abductions by militant groups. 

 
More recently, Human Rights Watch has reported that more than 800 people were killed in violence following the April 16, 2011, elections, which were more fairly and openly run than in the past, but were nevertheless marred by allegations of vote buying, ballot-box stuffing, and inflation of results, most noticeably in southeastern Nigeria - incumbent Goodluck Jonathan's stronghold - where official results in the presidential election in some rural areas recorded close to 100 percent voter turnout. 
 
 
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Debate
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Past Ambassadors

Joseph Palmer 2d

Appointment: Sep 23, 1960
Presentation of Credentials: Oct 4, 1960
Termination of Mission: Reaccredited when Nigeria became a republic; presented new credentials Dec 12, 1963; Left post Jan 16, 1964
 
Elbert G. Mathews
Appointment: Mar 10, 1964
Presentation of Credentials: Apr 11, 1964
Termination of Mission: Left post Jul 26, 1969
 
William C. Trueheart
Appointment: Sep 19, 1969
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 6, 1969
Termination of Mission: Left post Sep 1, 1971
 
John E. Reinhardt
Appointment: Sep 30, 1971
Presentation of Credentials: Dec 3, 1971
Termination of Mission: Left post Feb 23, 1975
 
Donald B. Easum
Appointment: Mar 26, 1975
Presentation of Credentials: May 22, 1975
Termination of Mission: Left post Oct 15, 1979
 
Stephen Low
Appointment: Sep 20, 1979
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 29, 1979
Termination of Mission: Left post Jul 4, 1981
 
Thomas R. Pickering
Appointment: Oct 26, 1981
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 30, 1981
Termination of Mission: Left post Jul 9, 1983
 
Thomas W. M. Smith
Appointment: Feb 10, 1984
Presentation of Credentials: Mar 15, 1984
Termination of Mission: Left post May 5, 1986
 
Princeton Nathan Lyman
Appointment: Sep 12, 1986
Presentation of Credentials: Oct 10, 1986
Termination of Mission: Left post Jul 24, 1989
 
Lannon Walker
Appointment: Oct 10, 1989
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 17, 1989
Termination of Mission: Left post July 10, 1992
 
William Lacy Swing
Appointment: Jun 15, 1992
Presentation of Credentials: Sept 24, 1992
Termination of Mission: Left post Sept 22, 1993
 
Walter C. Carrington
Non-career appointee
Appointment: Aug 10, 1993
Presentation of Credentials: Nov 9, 1993
Termination of Mission: Left post Oct 7, 1997
 
William H. Twaddell
Appointment: Nov 10, 1997
Presentation of Credentials: Dec 19, 1997
Termination of Mission: Left post Aug 3, 2000
 
Howard Franklin Jeter
Appointment: Dec 28, 2000
Presentation of Credentials: Mar 3, 2001
Termination of Mission: Left post Jul 30, 2003
 
Donald K. Steinberg
Note: Nomination not acted upon by the Senate.
 
John Campbell
Appointment: May 12, 2004
Presentation of Credentials: Jun 25, 2004
Termination of Mission:
 
Robin Renee Sanders
Appointment: November 19, 2007
Presentation of Credentials:
Termination of Mission: Left Post
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Nigeria's Ambassador to the U.S.
ambassador-image Adefuye, Ade

Ambassador from Nigeria: Who Is Ade Adefuye?

 
Since March 2010, the ambassador from Nigeria to the United States has been a former history professor, Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, who has already helped to persuade the U.S. to remove his country from the government’s “country of interest” terrorism watch list. Nigeria was placed on the list following the December 25, 2009, incident when Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight headed from Amsterdam to Detroit.
 
Describing relations between Nigeria and the United States, Adefuye told the New African, “Historically, we've had a love-hate relationship with the United States. We are of strategic importance to America; that no-one can deny. They want us to be a bastion of democracy, a peaceful nation. If we're not, they get very angry.”
 
Born in Ijebu-Igbo, Nigeria, circa 1947, Adefuye received his First Degree in History at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1969, and in 1973 earned a Ph.D. in History there, with a dissertation on “The Political History of the Palwo, 1400-1911.” As a Fulbright scholar he studied at Columbia University, the University of North Florida and the University of Florida in Gainesville.
 
Adefuye started his academic career as a Lecturer at the University of Lagos, where he rose to the position of Professor, published books and articles, and served as Head of the History Department from 1985 to 1987. Among the books he has written are History of the Peoples of Lagos State (1987) and Culture and Foreign Policy: The Nigerian Example(1993).
 
He received his first diplomatic commission, as High Commissioner (i.e., ambassador) to Jamaica, with concurrent accreditation to Haiti and Belize, a job he kept from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 to 1994, he served as Deputy High Commissioner at the Nigerian Embassy in London, U.K., when he was hired by the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth of Nations) as Deputy Director of Strategic Planning. After fourteen years with the Commonwealth, Adefuye took a job with the Economic Community of West African States, where he served as an Advisor for two years, from 2008 to 2010.
 

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Nigeria's Embassy Web Site in the U.S.
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US-flag nation-flag U.S. Embassy web site

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria

McCulley, Terence
ambassador-image

Terence P. McCulley, selected by President Barack Obama on June 28, 2010, to serve as ambassador to Nigeria, is a member of the Senior Foreign Service whose diplomatic career has been spent mostly in Africa or working on African issues. He was confirmed by the Senate on August 5.

 
Born in Medford, Oregon, McCulley grew up in Eugene, where he attended the University of Oregon. He graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in European history and French language and literature. He attended the Université de Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France, from 1979-1980 as a Rotary Foundation Graduate Fellow, and he also attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
 
McCulley joined the Foreign Service in 1985. His first three tours were in Niger, South Africa and Chad, working in management, consular and political reporting positions.
 
Following his assignment to Chad, he served as consul at the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, India.
 
In 1993, McCulley worked as the desk officer for Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the State Department’s Office of Central African Affairs, handling issues in Zaire during the Rwanda genocide, the massive influx of refugees into eastern Zaire and the beginnings of the conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region. 
 
McCulley served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in Togo, Senegal and Tunisia from 1995-2004.
 
In June 2004, he became the deputy coordinator for Iraq assistance in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
 
President George W. Bush nominated McCulley to be U.S. ambassador to Mali in May 2005 and he was confirmed by the Senate in June of that year.
 
Prior to his appointment as ambassador to Nigeria, McCulley served as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 
McCulley is fluent in French, and speaks some Zulu and Wolof. He and his wife have two sons.
 
Earlier Biography (Spoke.com)

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