Nigeria

Nigeria is a country in West Africa, composed of two former British colonies (Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria). The territory that it covers includes the Niger Delta, the mouth of the Niger River, and the Bight of Biafra. Because the Niger Delta area is rich in oil, Royal Dutch Shell continues to drill for oil on the large reserves in this area, though many local residents oppose this. There is a resistance movement in the South that has pursued civil disobedience actions; the two groups that are at the forefront of this resistance are the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. It is highly populated, with over 150 million people living there, and many African-Americans (including Afro-Brazilians and Afro-Cubans) are descended from people who lived in what is today Southern Nigeria. Nigeria is a poor country, with much of the population residing in the capital city of Lagos. Among the ethnic groups that live there are the mostly Christian Igbo and Yoruba (in the South) and the Fulani and Hausa, who are mostly Muslim (in the North). Nigeria is also the country in which Afrobeat music was created, and is the birthplace of Fela Kuti.