365 Days of Climate Awareness 234 – Introduction to Nigeria

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, at over 211 million, and occupies 923,769 km²/356,669  mi², on the central west coast north of the Gulf of Guinea. The country’s capital is Abuja, but the largest city, and the second largest metropolitan area in Africa (behind Kinsasha in Congo), is Lagos. By GDP Nigeria’s is the largest economy in Africa, dominated by petroleum production (40% of GDP), largely consisting of international supermajor oil companies operating in the Niger River Basin, one of the most productive oil provinces on earth. About 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture, which was the dominant industry before the emergence of oil and gas extraction.

Map of Africa.

Traces of human settlement stretch back roughly 10,000 years, through many different phases of civilization. In the 1500’s Portuguese explorers arrived. Later the British and other Europeans established the slave trade at several points along the coast, a practice which persisted until the early 1800’s. Its place was taken by the Sokoto Caliphate, an Islamic empire which at one point controlled more than two million slaves throughout central Africa. The Caliphate was broken up in the early 1900’s and the British took control of much of Nigeria. In 1960 the country gained full independence from Britain, part of a wave of independence movements throughout Africa which lasted much of the 20^th century.

Physical map of Nigeria.

Nigeria is entirely tropical, lying between the latitudes of 4°N and 14°N latitude. The northeast, part of the southern Sahel, is arid. Moving south through the savannah the climate becomes progressively wetter to the south and becomes rainforest and then mangrove. The southern part of the country is dominated by the seasonal monsoon from the South Atlantic Ocean, receiving between 2-3 m of rain per year. In the equatorial zone annual temperatures are very stable, averaging 26°C/79°F in the winter and 28°C/82°F in summer.

Köppen-Geiger climate zones, 1980-2016.

Nigeria can become extremely hot during the dry season, with the northern savannah reaching 48°C/118°F. Southern and central Nigeria experience rainy seasons, driven by tropical Atlantic winds, at different times of year. The central region receives monsoonal rain from July to September. The southern region experiences two annual rainfall seasons, the longer from March until July, and the shorter from September until October.

The capital city of Abuja.

Tomorrow: Nigeria and the oil industry.

Be brave, and be well.