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Nigeria, one of the largest and most important countries in Africa, is rich in traditions and customs, both indigenous and modern. Culture and Customs of Nigeria is the only concise, authoritative, and up-to-date discussion of Nigerian culture that introduces to a Western audience the complexity of its society and the emerging lifestyles among its various peoples. Students and other interested readers will learn about all major aspects of Nigerian culture and customs, including the land, peoples, and brief historical overview; religion and worldview; literature and media; art and architecture/housing; cuisine and traditional dress; gender, marriage, and family; social customs and lifestyles; and music and dance.

Nigerians are proud of their diverse culture comprising more than 250 ethnic groups. Important changes in their economy and political system are helping them cope with challenges in the modern world. Culture and Customs of Nigeria illuminates a dynamic society—how Nigerians today live, work, worship, interact, relax, and express themselves. Numerous photos, a chronology, and a glossary complement the text.

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Children discover and explore the rich heritage of ancient cultures around the world through fascinating myths, legends, festivals, and stories of the culture. Detailed maps and vivid illustrations show how various people lived and what they accomplished. Each book in this popular series contains five easy-to-do art projects- complete with unique punch-out stencils for making many of the traditional arts and crafts still produced today. Ages 8+ ... Read more

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Describes the geography, history, government, economy, and culture of Nigeria. ... Read more

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A strong connection between people and nature is at the heart of traditional beliefs in Nigeria. This exciting new book introduces children to the religions, festivals, clothing, music, language, arts, and crafts of this culturally diverse nation. ... Read more

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In 1928 in central Nigeria tin miners uncovered clay shards which, when reconstructed, were found to be fragments of terracotta sculptures. The unique representations of human heads and other figures date from 500 BCE and are attributed to a culture known today as Nok. One hundred authenticated pieces, many shown here for the first time, are collected in this exciting introduction to an enigmatic culture that is thought to be the oldest known organized civilization in sub-Saharan Africa. While much about the Nok people remains unknown, their craftsmanship and attention to detail speak volumes about their talents, understanding of beauty, and sophistication. Lavishly illustrated throughout and with essays discussing Nok art, this collection offers an intriguing glimpse into an important chapter in the history of African art. ... Read more

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An insider traces the details of hope and ambition gone wrong in the Giant of Africa, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. When it gained independence from Britain in 1960, hopes were high that, with mineral wealth and over 140 million people, the most educated workforce in Africa, Nigeria would become Africa s first superpower and a stabilizing democratic influence in the region.

However, these lofty hopes were soon dashed and the country lumbered from crisis to crisis, with the democratic government eventually being overthrown in a violent military coup in January 1966. From 1966 until 1999, the army held onto power almost uninterrupted under a succession of increasingly authoritarian military governments and army coups. Military coups and military rule (which began as an emergency aberration) became a seemingly permanent feature of Nigerian politics.

The author names names, and explores how British influence aggravated indigenous rivalries. He shows how various factions in the military were able to hold onto power and resist civil and international pressure for democratic governance by exploiting the country's oil wealth and ethnic divisions to its advantage.

Africa is featured in the headlines as developed countries and China clash over the need for the continent s resources. Yet there are few serious books to help us understand any aspect of the never-ending cascade of wars and conflicts. While other titles on Nigeria are mostly children's books or travel guides, the current work focuses specifically on the social tensions, the motivations and the methods of the series of coups that rent Nigeria. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

This is the one stop shop on oil, politics and violence in Nigeria
There is just one word to describe this book......EXCELLENT!!!.

This is the number one resource on the true, balanced and non-biased book on the history of Nigeria within the period in review.

I have one request Max, there has to be a part two from 1983 to 1999. This is a must!!!

Well done for the good job!!

well written.
This book truthful chronicle Nigerian's journey as a nation. My only wish was lack of pictures. This was a well researched and documented. Kudos to the author. I'll definitely recommend the book to others.

Concise and Accurate
It is very clear to anyone, who knows a thing or two about Nigerian History that this book is very well researched and written. Max writes the book, similar to the way a detective solves a case. All the facts are dissected from multiple angles and then various hypotheses are drawn out, until the most logical conclusion is arrived at. For a 268 page book, it is cornucopia of facts and tidbits of soldiers and politicians, who shaped the political landscape of Nigeria.

He also does an extremely good job of setting the atmosphere, the expectations and grievances of various groups and interest, and also getting into the minds of the numerous "principals". So, as a reader, you now have a very intimate understanding of who shaped and influenced the various coups, and counter-coups; and why.

The ingredients for the "Nigerian" problem is transparent and well laid out in the pages of the book. However, my only disappointment is that Max Siollun does not offer a solution. I guess he can't do it all, that is left for the readers to figure out from being familiar with the causes.

Outstanding, Impartial, Objective and Incisive
This book has for once laid to rest the many inconsistencies and to a large degree partial and disjointed accounts presented over the years by so called "eye witness" accounts of the various events over the period from 1966 to 1976.
Devoid of any hints of propagandist material, Mr Siollun has given us an incisive and impartial account of the events of those years with copious cross references to authoritative and classified material which the author relied on through out the book. An added advantage is the fact that the "characters" current location and professional circumstances are dutifully and meticulously presented to the reader well into the present day. For instance, we were able to note that the erstwhile post failed 1976 coup Murtala successor General Obasanjo came back as a Civillian President much later on.
Mr Siollun has the unique advantage of being born in Nigeria but not natively belonging to any of the main tribes in Nigeria hence could not be seen or accused of being "Hausa centric", "igbo centric" or "Yoruba centric" in what has been an objective and well researched book.
The book itself is invariably a culmination of several decades of painstaking researched articles and materials written and published by the author over the years - already available in the public domain. What this book has done is to cleverly weave these together and provide the avid reader/follower of Nigerian History with a comprehensive harness of updated material hitherto unseen until now.
I was born around mid 1967 in the UK but returned with my parents to Nigeria late the same year when the Civil War was already in "full swing". We lived at GRA Ikeja (a few hundred meters to the Military Cantonment in Ikeja). Indeed at a point in time Babangida was our next door neighbour for several years when he was a junior "unknown" officer! I recall my parents (Who were federal civil servants based in Lagos) much later on recounting the dreadful events of that period. Though I did recall vividly the abortive Dimka coup of barely a decade later and the Udoji award and the attendant inflation that occured shortly afterwards. Indeed I recalled going to the Museum at Onikan in Lagos with my parents to view the bullet ridden Mercedes in which General Murtala met his untimely death. I was barely 13 years old then but ever since that visit, I made up my mind to hunt down as much information as possible with regards to the chequered history of our beloved nation.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the author's "first installment" of the 1966 to 1976 period, I cannot wait for the next installment covering the period December 1983 to October 1999. Indeed as fate would have it, My late Dad was the Territorial Manager at the Post and Telecoms(later renamed to NITEL) Ikeja Telephone Exchange which was walking distance from the Ikeja Military barracks. I do recall a very interesting encounter during the 1983 coup when soldiers came knocking on our door in the wee hours of the morning. As was customary in those days, the soldiers would generally take over the radio station and deactivate the local exchange at ikeja which my Dad headed at the time. On getting to the exchange on the fateful night, they ordered the technicians to switch off the power to deactive all local and international line in/out of the Exchange but the techician panicked and was not able to do so especially whilst under pressure from gun totting and fierce looking soldiers from the Ikeja cantonment. The technician was thereafter escorted under armed guard to our residence which was around half a mile down the road. My dad was politely roused from bed at around 2AM and taken to the exchange under armed guard whereupon he dutifully deactivated the relevant equipment; was told to go back home and "we were all sworn to secrecy". Of course we could not sleep a wink and welcomed the new year with martial music on the airwave.
Indeed unbeknown to us at the time, we were unwitting accessories to the commencement of almost two decades of military rule starting with the Buhari/Idiagbon regime and ending with the brutal dictatorial military regimes of Babangida/Abacha. With a number of real and phantom coups also thrown in somewhere in between for "good measures".
Once again Max, we doff out hats to you and really do appreciate your kind efforts at taking the time to provide Nigerians with a well written and incisive account of those years. A benchmark has been set and we fervently hope your next account will be equally as exhilarating.

The best book on the period so far
In the West, considerations of truth and objectivity in history are seen in some quarters as marks of a lack of sophistication. In Nigeria, however, they are matters of life and death. People there die as a result of history forgot, of lessons not learned. Many people die.

Such questions loom large in Nigeria's violent political history of the first two decades after independence. The most problematic have been, what really happened during the first two coups and the resultant civil war? It is here that Nigerians need to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because such reliable knowledge has proved useful in the past. But most Nigerian histories of those turbulent times, are often clouded by the malodorous presence of ethnic chauvinism and hatred of the Other, and the need for self-aggrandizement. Many readers despaired of ever seeing an unbiased history from Nigerians themselves, and sought such objectivity from outsiders who often had little understanding of the subtleties of the Nigerian political milieu.

Thus Mr. Siollun's book about the first four coups (1966-1976) must be considered something of a miracle. Unlike prior writers on the topic from that country, the Nigerian-born historian successfully checked at the door the ethnic biases he surely must have, in order to combine the dispassionate objectivity of the outsider with the nuanced knowledge of the insider. The result is a truly insightful book that is highly accessible to the general reader. The book also has enough new information to serve as a starting point for future investigators who wish to tackle some of the issues in greater detail.

Mr Siollun, whose essays about the first two coups are familiar to those who visit Nigerian websites, has tackled the four coups sequentially, and shown how they are related in terms of personnel involved and lessons to be learned. For instance, some of the participants in the second coup--such as Babangida, Abacha, Yaradua, and Buhari--dominated Nigerian coup-making culture for thirty years. Mr. Siollun shows how failing to punish murderous putschists can and did come back to bite coup beneficiaries in the arse, since "unpunished coup plotters will re-offend. The coup plotters behind Nigeria's military regimes were repeat offenders--often with fatal consequences for themselves. They were men who lived life on the edge, snacked on danger and dined on death. For them, coup plotting was in the blood."

Mr. Siollun's summary of the pre-coup political situation is concise and lucid, and looks at the events in new ways. For instance, most people probably do not see the Nzeogwu coup as the second attempt at overthrowing the Balewa government by force. While many followers of Nigerian history may know that Awolowo--leader of the Action Group, one of the opposition parties in the First Republic--was jailed for treason in 1964, few are aware that it was not a trumped up charge, and that three decades later, Action Group General Secretary, S.G. Ikoku, confirmed that there was a genuine AG plot to topple the federal government.

Mr. Siollun is at his strongest where he skillfully cuts away the myths that have grown weed-like around the more controversial of those 1966 events. One of the more pernicious of these is the lie that the January 15 1966 coup was an effort at Igbo domination organized by the Igbos. Mr. Siollun demonstrates that there is a very strong case for seeing January 15 as an UPGA (United Progressive Grand Alliance) coup, or in other words, a second attempt by the South or southern political parties to wrest power from the North. By examining the national character of the Igbos, and the stereotypes that grew around their business activities, he carefully shows us the historical process via which the Igbos became the national scapegoat; we see how one section of the country practiced what he calls "transferred malice," where the Igbos were singled out for punishment during troubles in which they only played a bit part.

In this absorbing and fascinating work, there is a good deal of new and startling information: who knew that in private moments, the genial Ironsi, first military ruler, liked to refer jokingly to his fellow Igbos by the pejorative Northern term "Nyamiri?" We learn of the enormous family pressures on Northern officers and men after January 15 demanding vengeance for the Northern officers killed. The blood relationships between Northern People's Congress (NPC) politicians, and some of the July 1966 plotters are revealed--Inua Wada, defence minister in the Balewa government during the First Republic, was Murtala Muhammed's cousin, for example. We begin to understand the Machiavellian Ibrahim Babangida--military president from 1985 to 1993--better when we find out his closest friends were among the Dimka coup plotters of Feb 1976, a coup in which those very friends marked him for liquidation. We learn that Gen. Obasanjo wept when the poisonous chalice of leadership would not pass him by. Such brief character and biographical sketches of principal players inject life into the narrative, and make the historical protagonists more than just names on a paper.

The book of course has its flaws, some quite minor and perhaps fixable in later editions. The footnoting seems somewhat haphazard and sparse. To some, this may be considered a benefit, but it could be frustrating to the reader or researcher who wants to learn more by exploring sources. And one of the more vexatious things is that the footnoting, like Carlyle's History, "is silent where you most wish her to speak."

More egregious are the omissions and failures to explore some controversial areas. We do not know the extent of Lt. Col Adekunle Fajuyi's involvement in January 15 even though Mr. Siollun was involved a few years back in a debate about it with someone on the Internet who went by the moniker "Arthur Unegbe". Perhaps there is nothing to know or find out, but Mr. Siollun's complete silence--no discussion of rumours, or analysis of possibilities--is troubling. Also surely we could learn from a brief exploration of the contradictions in the public statements of Gowon's apologists and the actions of the man that suggest some foreknowledge of the July horrors? However, in light of the importance and intelligence of this work, it would be churlish to carp about these matters.

I admit to being skeptical before reading this work, expecting the typical tendentious and ethnically jaundiced approach that colours most Nigerian commentaries on the coups of 1966. What Mr. Siollun has given us rather is a deft, measured, and just examination of those tragic events, all done in very accessible prose. All Nigerians owe him a debt of gratitude. I wish I could find a way to get a copy into the hands of every educated Nigerian.
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Presents the history and culture of the kingdom which 500 years ago outshone all others on Africa's west coast and which is now part of Nigeria. ... Read more

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A story of the miners who profoundly shaped the process of production, and the rhythms and culture of work and resistance at the Enugu colliery in Nigeria. The author draws comparisons between the experiences of the Enugu miners and their counterparts in Scotland, Wales and northern England. ... Read more

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The study is concerned with preserving and transmitting indigenous culture: the traditional family, modes of social and economic organisation, religious life and moral education; the spread of western education from the nineteenth century; contemporary western cultural hegemony; indigenous and western cultural values; the spread of Arabic cultures, Islam and Islamic education in Nigeria; and means of integrating the various cultural heritages for a sustainable future. ... Read more

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Nigeria's varied environments are featured from its tropical forests, lagoons, and swamps to the grassy plains of the savannah. Fascinating text describes the country's weather, including the powerful Harmattan Wind, farming rubber trees, the exotic wildlife, and how ENDangered rainforests are being protected. ... Read more

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This study makes the point that foreigners who have come in contact with Africans, whether as missionary, teacher, colonial administrator, or trader have often underestimated the extent to which the African cultural ethos rules the African mind. Modernizing efforts in Africa are based on assumptions which seek rapid transformations into the ways of another cultural ethos. These efforts, which abound in religious, developmental and political practices, have often met with difficulties. An examination into the content, structure and symbolic notions of the African ethos should unearth those aspects which are in conflict with, and those which are in favour of modernizing tendencies. This orientation sheds light on the problems that inhibit stability and development in Africa. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent historical connections to MNC petroleum exploitation, 419 scams
This book provides a historically informed and persuasive story connecting the beginning of the slave trade all the way up to the Ogoni tragedy, 419 scams, and the spectacle of petroleum boom and bust.Given increased corporate interest in Africa and especially Nigeria as the 'next Gulf' (see book The Next Gulf by Andy Rowell, James Marriott & Lorne Stockman), it is important to read literature like Apter's and get a different view of the world from the neoliberal, corporate-led globalization, 'war on terror' worldviews currently prevalent in development literature and political economy literature in general. ... Read more

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Archaeologists have traced the long history of the people of Nigeria back 2000 years. This new book details its people from the early powerful kingdoms to enslavement and colonization by the Europeans to independence. Candid photographs help show what life is like today at home, at school, in the workplace, and in the cities and villages. ... Read more

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Life in Nigeria
The photographs were colorful and the text full of useful information but how can the author talk about city life without including photographs of hotels, highways, restaurants, cafes and all the trimmings of modern city life. I was surprised, especially since this book was printed in the year 2000. Also in the section about "Variety of Homes" why did the author fail to have pictures of the grand homes in Ikoyi and Victoria Island, homes that are a great testimony to Nigerian architecture? I am tired of people coming up to me and asking me what life is like in Nigeria and whether I live in a hut? It is no wonder they have this view when books like this continue to only depict the poor, deprived lifestyle of Africa (village life) failing to take note of the leaps and bounds we have made towards modernity. ... Read more

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This book is a study of the impact of the Irish Spiritans upon the Igbo of Nigeria during the twentieth century. Ebelebe argues that the Church must be selective in what it reclaims from its Irish Heritage and must draw from the resources of Igbo traditional culture and religion. ... Read more

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This book documents an important, but understudied, sector of a West African working class. The coal miners of the Enugu Government colliery became nationalist icons for many Nigerians following a colonial government massacre of striking miners in 1949. Carolyn Brown argues that the experiences of these miners deserve to be studied as something more than appendages to the political history of the birth of the Nigerian nation. Through the lens of gender, race, and class, she documents the tumultuous history of the Enugu miners and reveals how they developed characteristics of self-awareness and class-consciousness similar to those of their Western counterparts in British or North American mines. ... Read more

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