Borders and Areas
• Shares land borders with Republic of Benin at west, with Chad and Cameroon at East and Niger at North;
• It coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the South and it boarders lake Chad to the Northeast;
• Geographic coordinates are 1000’N, 800’E;
• Nigeria total area is 923,768 Km2;
Climate
• Is divided in three regions:
1. The far south-tropical rainforest;
2. The far north-desert-like;
3. Rest of the country-savannah
Topography
• Jos Plateau, Udi Hils, Nambila Mountains;
• The main river is Niger extending about 4,180 km;
• Valleys of the Niger and Benue river;
Vegetation
• Three types of vegetation:
1. Forests;
2. Savannah;
3. Mountain land;
Natural Resources
• Petroleum, tin, columbite, iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, zinc, natural gas;
Information selected from http://en.wikipedia.org/
Ivo, Pedro & Tânia
Monday, 19 April 2010
History of Nigeria
Archaeological research has shown that people were already living in southwestern Nigeria (specifically Iwo-Eleru) as early as 9000 BC.
Yoruba people are one of the largest ethno-linguistic or ethnic groups in west Africa.[6] The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language. The Yoruba constitute around 30 million individuals throughout West Africa and are found predominantly in Nigeria with approximately 21 percent of its total population.
Yoruba settlements are often composed of three main generations:
• The first generation is made up of founding towns and cities of the origin or capitals of Yoruba states/kingdoms.
• The second generation is those created by conquest, diaspora or/and resettlement.
• The third generation is those that emerged after the Yoruba wars.
Igbo people are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism. Igbo people are among the largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Before British colonialism, the Igbo were a politically fragmented / divided group. There were variations in culture such as in art styles, attire and religious practices. Various subgroups were set according to clan, lineage, village affiliation and dialect. There were not many centralized chieftaincy, hereditary aristocracy, or kingship customs except in kingdoms like that of the Nri, Agbor and Onitsha. This political system changed significantly under British colonialism in the 19th century.
Certain conflicts with other Nigerian ethnicities led to the Igbo dominant Eastern Nigeria seceding from Nigeria to create the independent state of Biafra. The Nigerian-Biafran war (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970) broke out shortly after. The end of the war led to the defeated Republic of Biafra being reabsorbed into Nigeria.
The Hausa Kingdoms were a collection of independent city-states situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad.
The Hausa Kingdoms began as seven states.
The Hausa Kingdoms emerged in the 13th century as vibrant trading centers. The primary exports were leather, gold, cloth, salt, kola nuts, animal hides, and henna.
Despite relatively constant growth, the city-states were vulnerable to aggression and, although the vast majority of its inhabitants were Muslim by the 16th century, they were attacked by Muslim jihadists from 1804 to 1808. In 1808 the last Hausa state was finally conquered by Usuman dan Fodio and incorporated into the Sokoto Caliphate.
Information directly selected from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nigeria.
Joana & Vanessa
The biography of Buchi Emecheta
Florence Onye Buchi Emecheta is a PEPA African novelist who has published over 20 books, plays and shorts about child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom, and she was born on July 21, 1944, in Lagos, Nigeria.
She is the daughter of Alice (okwuekwuhe) Emecheta and Jeremy Nwabudinke, who was railway worker in the 40s’.
Due to the gender discrimination, Buchi was kept at home while her younger brother was sent to school, but after persuading her parents to consider the benefits about her education, Buchi was then sent to an all-girl’s missionary school.
When Buchi was nine years old, her father died and, one year later she received a full scholarship to the Methodist Girls School.
At eleven she got engaged to Sylvester Onwordi, and she stayed at the Methodist Girls School until their marriage, when Buchi turned sixteen years old.
After their marriage Sylvester moved to London to attend University and Buchi only joined in 1962.
In six years Buchi already had five children, but she was unhappy and trapped in oft-violent marriage.
Buchi, then started writing in her spare time, although her husband, suspicious of what she wrote, burned her first manuscript
At the age of twenty-two, while working as a librarian at the British Museum, where she stayed from 1965 to 1969, Buchi left her husband and supported all of her five children while earning a BSc degree in sociology at the University of London.
She also wrote many articles about Black British life in several journals and newspapers.
In 1972 she published her first book of shorts, titled ‘In the Ditch’. This book showed the struggles of a main character named Adah, who was forced to live in a housing estate while working as a librarian to support her five children, needless to say, this story talked about her own life.
In 1974 her book Second-Class Citizen was published and, both this book and In the Ditch were published as one single book titled Adah’s Story in 1983.
Until 1976 she was a youth worker and sociologist for the Inner London Education Authority. After that she visited the United States and was a community worker in Camden, New Jersey, from 1976 to 1978.
From 1972 to 1979 she visited several American Universities, including Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University, The University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Illinois, and she travelled all throughout the world giving lectures as the successful author she was.
From 1980 to 1981, Dr. Emecheta was the senior resident fellow and visiting professor of English at the University of Calabar in Nigeria.
In 1982, Dr. Emecheta saw her lecture at Yale University, and the University of London, and a fellowship at the University of London in 1986.
She is the daughter of Alice (okwuekwuhe) Emecheta and Jeremy Nwabudinke, who was railway worker in the 40s’.
Due to the gender discrimination, Buchi was kept at home while her younger brother was sent to school, but after persuading her parents to consider the benefits about her education, Buchi was then sent to an all-girl’s missionary school.
When Buchi was nine years old, her father died and, one year later she received a full scholarship to the Methodist Girls School.
At eleven she got engaged to Sylvester Onwordi, and she stayed at the Methodist Girls School until their marriage, when Buchi turned sixteen years old.
After their marriage Sylvester moved to London to attend University and Buchi only joined in 1962.
In six years Buchi already had five children, but she was unhappy and trapped in oft-violent marriage.
Buchi, then started writing in her spare time, although her husband, suspicious of what she wrote, burned her first manuscript
At the age of twenty-two, while working as a librarian at the British Museum, where she stayed from 1965 to 1969, Buchi left her husband and supported all of her five children while earning a BSc degree in sociology at the University of London.
She also wrote many articles about Black British life in several journals and newspapers.
In 1972 she published her first book of shorts, titled ‘In the Ditch’. This book showed the struggles of a main character named Adah, who was forced to live in a housing estate while working as a librarian to support her five children, needless to say, this story talked about her own life.
In 1974 her book Second-Class Citizen was published and, both this book and In the Ditch were published as one single book titled Adah’s Story in 1983.
Until 1976 she was a youth worker and sociologist for the Inner London Education Authority. After that she visited the United States and was a community worker in Camden, New Jersey, from 1976 to 1978.
From 1972 to 1979 she visited several American Universities, including Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University, The University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Illinois, and she travelled all throughout the world giving lectures as the successful author she was.
From 1980 to 1981, Dr. Emecheta was the senior resident fellow and visiting professor of English at the University of Calabar in Nigeria.
In 1982, Dr. Emecheta saw her lecture at Yale University, and the University of London, and a fellowship at the University of London in 1986.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchi_Emecheta
Made by: Ana Cláudia, Débora Sofia e Ruthermassy.
Nigeria
Nigeria
1. Demography
Nigeria is the most populous country of Africa and represents a quart of the population in the West African. There is a big variety of costumes, languages, traditions between 389 ethnic groups of the country. Nigeria has a big tax of fecundity and a big population growth. There is more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria as hauçá-fulani, vorubás, igbos, ijaw, kanuris, ibibios, annangs, tiv and efik. The most common religions are Islamism and Christianity and the official language is English.
2. Igbos
They are one of the biggest ethnic African groups. They live in the East, South and Southeast of Nigeria, besides Cameroons and Equatorial Guinea. In 1967, supported by the French multinational Elf-Aquitaine, they declared the independence of the East of Nigeria, creating the Biafra Republic. There was a widespread famine in this region and a civil war that leaded to the defeat of the Igbos.
3. The Igbos language
Igbo is a language spoken in Nigeria by approximately 20-25 millions of people. It is written in Latin alphabet and it is a tonal language like Chinese. There are hundreds of different dialects and languages that derive from Igbo and the most are intelligible between them, like ikwerre enuane, bende, owerri, ngwa, umuahia, nnewi, onitsha, awka, abriba, arochukwu, nsukka, mbaise, abba, ohafia, agbor, wawa okigwe, ukwa/ndoki and ekpeye. The high degree of similarity between them makes easier to form a dialect continuity.
Sources:
By: Carla, Duarte and Vânia
Monday, 12 April 2010
3rd Term
In the 3rd term, we are going to study "The Moonlight Bride" by Buchi Emecheta. Before starting to analyse the story, we researched about the country, Nigeria (geography, main peoples and cultural traditions), and the biography of the author.
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