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Nigeria’s Misplaced History – Comrade Ganiyu Abdullahi

There was no country called Nigeria, before 1897. Therefore, it is exactly 125 years ago that the name “Nigeria” was coined by Miss Flora Louise Shaw, a British correspondent, who later got married to Lord Lugard (Nigeria’s first Governor-General). Her concept for this name was contained in her article, published in the London Times of 8th January, 1897. According to her “the name Nigeria, applying to no other part of Africa, may without offence to any neighbour, be accepted as co-extensive with the territories, over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence, and may serve to differentiate them equally from the Colonies of Lagos and the Niger Protectorate, on the coast; and from the French territories of the Upper Niger.”