Nigeria was a creation of the British colonial adventurer and empire builder. The March for markets, raw materials and the need to exert political influence overseas led Britain to journey to places as distant as Wikki in present day Borno State.To the Northwest, Sokoto came under her influence too. Deriving the name Nigeria from the word ‘Niger’ – the name of the river that constitutes the most remarkable geographical feature, the colonial master coupled together the diverse peoples North and South of the river and its tributary — the Benue — into a modem nation-state.

The vegetation in tile South is predominantly rain forest, but moving northwards one finds a belt of savannah and scrubland which gives way to the Sahara Desert. From across the desert came the earliest external influence to reach some of the areas now part of Nigeria.

That was Islamic faith and ideas which began to filter from North Africa, first into Kanern- Bornu. Although, at the time, it was the religion of a few elite until the nineteenth century. The Niger River, the name from which Nigeria is coined, empties into the Bights of Benin and Bonny, through an intricate network of Delta characterized by a thick mangrove which the British ventured in order to get prized items of trade in the nineteenth century. But this was after the trade in slaves had been outlawed in 1833.

SLAVE TRADE: More