Government

First Nigerian President from 1963 to 1966: Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe ( 1 October 1963). He is also the first Nigerian to hold the post of Governors-General of Nigeria.

Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe (November 16, 1904 – May 11, 1996), usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe and popularly known as "Zik", was one of the leading figures of modern Nigerian nationalism. He was head of state of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966. He served as the second and last Governor-General from 1960 to 1963 and the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966, holding the presidency throughout the Nigerian First Republic.

Azikiwe was born on November 16, 1904, in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria. His parents were Igbo; his father Obed-Edom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe (1879–1958), a clerk in the British Administration of Nigeria and his mother was Rachel Ogbenyeanu Azikiwe. Nnamdi means "My father is alive" in the Igbo language. After studying at Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar, and Methodist Boys' High School Lagos, Azikiwe went to the United States. While there he attended Howard University, Washington DC, before enrolling and graduating from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, in 1930. He obtained a masters degree in Political Science from University of Pennsylvania in 1933 and another masters degree in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1934. He worked as an instructor at Lincoln before returning to Nigeria.

After a successful journalism enterprise, Azikiwe entered into politics, co-founding the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) alongside Herbert Macaulay in 1944. He became the secretary-general of the National Council in 1946, and was elected to Legislative Council of Nigeria the following year. In 1951, he became the leader of the Opposition to the government of Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region's House of Assembly because Obafemi Awolowo introduced cross-carpeting into the Nigerian politics. This happened after the election, when he convinced his fellow Yorubas to defect from NCNC to AG. Nnamdi was a nationalist and an Igbo ethnic leader whose only ambition for a better and greater Nigeria. In 1952, he moved to the Eastern Region, and was elected to the position of Chief Minister and in 1954 became Premier of Nigeria's Eastern Region. On November 16, 1960, he became the Governor General, with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister. On the same day became the first Nigerian named to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. With the proclamation of a republic in 1963, he became the first President of Nigeria. In both posts, Azikiwe's role was largely ceremonial. He was the first President of the Senate of the Federation (January–November 1960).

He was inducted into the prestigious Agbalanze society of Onitsha as Nnayelugo in 1946, a customary recognition for Onitsha men of significant accomplishment. Then, in 1962, he became a second-rank red cap chieftain or Ndichie Okwa as the Oziziani Obi. In 1970, he was installed as the Owelle-Osowa-Anya of Onitsha, making him a first-rank, hereditary red cap nobleman or Ndichie Ume.

In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. He was conferred with the highest national honour of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in 1980. He has received fourteen honorary degrees from Nigerian, American and Liberian universities, which include Lincoln University, Storer College, Howard University, Michigan State University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Lagos, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Ibadan, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and University of Liberia.

Azikiwe and his civilian colleagues were removed from power in the military coup of January 15, 1966. During the Biafran (1967–1970) war of secession, Azikiwe became a spokesman for the nascent republic and an adviser to its leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. After the war, he served as Chancellor of Lagos University from 1972 to 1976. He joined the Nigerian People's Party in 1978, making unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 1979 and again in 1983. He left politics involuntarily after the military coup on December 31, 1983. He died on May 11, 1996, at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, in Enugu, Enugu State, after a protracted illness.

First and only Nigerian Prime Minister: Alhaji SirAbubakar Tafawa Balewa (1 Oct. 1960). He was Nigeria's first indigenous Police and Defense Minister (Feb. 1960). Tafawa Balewa also delivered Nigeria's first independence speech on 1 October 1960. Click HERE for the speech. He was also the first Nigerian Prime Minister Assassinated in Office: Alhaji SirAbubakar Tafawa Balewa (Jan. 1966).

The first chancellor of the University of Northern Nigeria, which later changed its name to Ahmadu Bello University to honor him: Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He was murdered in January 1966 during a military coup d’état that ended Nigeria’s First Republic. Bello was born in June 1910 (many sources say 1909) in Rabah, a town near Sokoto. He was the great-great-grandson of the famous Usman dan Fodio.

In 1949, Bello was a member of several political bodies: the Nigeria Coal Board, Northern Regional Production Development Board, and Northern Regional Development Board. That same year, Bello and others, including Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, founded the Northern People’s Congress. Between 1952 and 1954, he was a member of the Northern House of Assembly, Northern Region Ministry of Works, and Northern Region Ministry of Local Government and Community Development. In October 1954, he became the first premier of the Northern Region. Bello received the honorary title Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

First Nigeria Military Head of State: General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (16 January, 1966 - 29 July, 1966). He also delivered Nigeria's first Coup Speech (pictured above: Sitting L-R: Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina, Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, Lt. Col. David Ejoor, Commodore JEA Wey, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon. Standing: Air Force ADC Lt. Andrew Nwankwo - He was with Ironsi when he was killed but escaped at the urging of Ironsi's Army ADC Lt. Sani Bello with whom he had a pact to save each other's life depending on which section of the nation conducted the next coup after the January 1966 coup)

Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi was born to Mazi Ezeugo Aguiyi's on 3 March 1924, in Umuahia-Ibeku, present-day Abia State, Nigeria. When he was eight years old, Ironsi moved in with his older sister Anyamma, who was married to Theophilius Johnson, a Sierra Leonean diplomat in Umuahia. Ironsi subsequently took the last name of his brother-in-law, who became his father figure. At the age of 18, Ironsi joined the Nigerian Army against the wishes of his sister.

Aguiyi Ironsi enlisted as a soldier (private) in the 7th battalion of the Nigerian Regiment in Kano February 2, 1942, and was posted to the Ordnance Depot in Sierra-Leone. A few years later, he was sent to the Ordnance Depot in Lagos as a Company Sergeant Major.

Some Non-Commissioned officers (N.C.Os) from the technical arms of the military, engineering, ordinance and signals, who were considered sufficiently educated, were sent to short officer conversion course. Louis V. Ugboma, Willington U Bassey, Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, and Johnson Ademulegun, were the first group. Louis Ugboma was commissioned Second Lieutenant in 1948, Wellignton in March 1948, Ironsi and Ademulegun, June 1949.

When Aguiyi came back from Eaton Hall England where he received his training, he was posted to West African Command Head Quarters in Accra, the Gold Coast (present day Ghana). In a short time he was sent back to the ordnance Depot Lagos, before he ended up in infantry regiment. He returned to Warminster School of Infantry, United Kingdom, 1952. At 32 years old, he was promoted full Lieutenant, and Aid-de-Camp to Sir John Macpherson, the Governor General. In 1953 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Ironsi and Ademulegun were sent to London as Regimental Representatives at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2nd June 1953. During the Queen of England's visit to Nigeria from January 28 to February 16, 1956, Ironsi was appointed to be the Queen's Extra- Equerry. At the end of the queen's visit Ironsi was promoted Major, and was made member of the fourth class of the Royal Victoria Order.

Before the end of 1956, He got back to United Kingdom to attend the staff college at Camberley, from January 17 to 17 December. While in United Kingdom, he became a member of "A" Division. He was the first Nigerian to be appointed Major, the first to attend staff college and the first to append M.V.O Psc to his name. In 1956, the Nigerian Regiment under the British control was dropped to become Nigerian Military force. W.U. Bassey, the second ever to be commissioned, got N/1, Ironsi N/2, Ademulegun N/3, and Shodehinde N/4. Loius V. Ugboma, the first Nigerian to be commissioned, was thrown out of the military because he was in the camp of the nationalists.

Although some vague references exist to a few indigenous field commissions in the early years of British campaigns in Nigeria, the first ten non-commissioned officers were W.U. Bassey (1946), Loius V. Ugboma (1948), Sey, Aguiyi-Ironsi and Samuel Ademulegun (1949), Ralph Shodeinde (1950) followed by Zakariya Maimalari, Lawan Gwadabe, Babafemi Ogundipe and Robert Adeyinka Adebayo (1953). Maimalari and Lawan, both northerners from the North-East, were the first Sandhurst trained officers in Nigeria. The others listed rose from the ranks.

Ironsi was confirmed substantive Major in October 1956, Ademulegun followed two months later. Bassey had his in April 1959. The government of Nigeria, headed by Sir Abubaka Tafawa Belewa knew that Ironsi was the most Senior Army Officer in the Nigerian army, based on this merit Ironsi was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel making him the first Nigerian to command a battalion when he led the 5th battalion to the Kivu and Leopoldville provinces of Congo. His unit proved integral to the peacekeeping effort, and he was soon appointed the Force Commander of the United Nations Operation in the Congo during the country's 1960's crisis.

The Austrian Government honored Ironsi for stopping the rebel army from killing the Austrian medical team. This honor took place December 14, 1961. In 1962 Ironsi was sent to London to be the Military adviser to the Nigerian High commissioner. He attended the Royal military college where he finished his defense studies between 1962 and 1963. His second tour of duty came in 1964. He was sent back to the Congo, as Major General. The war was brought to a logical conclusion. Ironsi was the last soldier to leave the Congo. When he came home he was promoted to Brigadier.

Finally, Ironsi was officially promoted to Major General (the first Nigerian) and General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Nigerian army on 9 February 1965. This process concluded the 'indigenization' of the office corps of the Nigerian army. The January, 1966 coup, by mid-Officers of the Nigerian Army, forced Ironsi to be the head of the military government, of Nigeria. Six months later, he was killed by the coup plotters of 29th July-Sept. 1966.

List of various Commanders of the Nigerian Army (Pre-Independence)

From October 24, 1913 Brevet Colonel C.H.P. Carter, CB, CMG (Royal Scots)

From September 6th, 1914 Maj. F.H. Cunliffe (Middlesex Regiment)

From 1914-1918 acting commandants as required

From 1918-1920 vacant

From March 20th, 1920 Col. G.T. Mair, CMG, DSO

From 1924 Col. J.F. Badham, DSO

From 1926 Col. W.B. Greenwell, CMG, DSO

From 1929 Col. C.C. Norman, CMG, DSO

From 1931 Col. W.R. Meredith, CBD, DSO

From 1936 Brig. D.P. Dickinson, DSO, OBE, MC

From 1939 Brig. W.R. Smallwood, DSO, MC

From 1940-1946 vacant

From 1946 Maj-Gen. C.R.A. Swynerton, CB, DSO

From 1949 Maj-Gen. C.B. Fairbanks, CB, CBE

From 1952 Maj-Gen. J.H. Inglis, CB, CBE

From 1956-1959 Maj-Gen. Kenneth G. Exham, CB, DSO

Post-Independence General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Nigerian Army

From 1960-1962 Major General Norman Foster

From 1962-1962 Brigadier Frank Goulson (Interim Basis)

From 1962-1965 Major General Christopher Welby-Everard

From 1965- Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi (First Indigenous Nigerian)

First Nigerian military coup in January 1966 was led by a collection of young leftists under Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu.

The coup plotters murdered Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier Ahmadu Bello of the Northern Region and Premier Ladoke Akintola of the Western Region. Despite this, they could not set up a central government. The President of the Senate and Acting President while Nnamdi Azikiwe was away on vacation, Prince Abyssinia Akweke Nwafor Orizu was then pressured to hand over government to the Nigeria Army, under the command of General JTU Aguyi-Ironsi.

The first coup in 1966 was a result of the deteriorating situation in western Nigeria where politicians had failed to find a solution. ‘Political killings had risen to a dangerous level’ and the whole country was heading towards chaos and disaster. The coup leaders were backed by a combination of officers and junior officers. The Prime Minister, a federal minister, two regional premiers, and top Army officers from the Northern and Western regions of the nation were brutally murdered.

The army quickly suppressed the revolt but assumed power when it was evident that almost all the leadership of the republic had been eliminated, including Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of Northern Region Sir Ahmadu Bello and Premier of the Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Orizu made a nationwide broadcast, after he had briefed Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe on the phone on the decision of the cabinet, announcing the cabinet's "voluntary" decision to transfer power to the armed forces. Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi then made his own broadcast, accepting the "invitation". On January 17, Major General Ironsi established the Supreme Military Council in Lagos and effectively suspended the constitution.

The second coup of 1966, in July, saw Major-General Gowon succeed Ironsi.

Nigeria’s first Head of State (representing Queen Elizabeth) and Last Colonial Governor General after Independence: 1 October 1960–16 November 1960 Sir James Wilson Robertson

He is consequently Nigeria’s first post independence Governor General, first post-independence Commander-in-Chief and last non-indigenous Governor General.

Sir James Wilson Robertson, KT, GCMG, GCVO, KBE, KStJ (27 October 1899 - 23 September 1983) was the last British Governor-General of Nigeria.

He was educated at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford. After Oxford he joined the Sudan Political Service from 1922 to 1953, serving appointments in Blue Nile, White Nile, Fung and Kordofan provinces and was the Civil Secretary from 1945 to 1953. He was then sent to British Guiana in January 1954 by Oliver Lyttelton, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies to write the Robertson Commission Report to investigate the current crisis in the country due to the election of the People's Progressive Party, who were seen as too friendly with communist organisations which had led to the suspension of the constitution.

He was then sent to Nigeria as a result of his good work. He was Governor-General of Nigeria from 15 June 1955 to 16 November 1960 (representing Queen Elizabeth as Head of State from 1 October 1960 to 16 November 1960).

His brother was Ian Robertson, Lord Robertson. He served a Commission in the British Army with the Gordon Highlanders and the Black Watch. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D.) from the University of Leeds in 1961.

Author of a Memoir, Africa in Transition: From Direct Rule to Independence, published by Hurst, London, in 1974, Sir James reflects on his nearly 40 years in Africa. This engaging narrative provides detail on both his administrative life and personal observations. In a final chapter, 'Reflections,' Sir James seeks to confront and account for the swift collapse and disintegration of so much of what he and his fellow British servants of the Empire had with such hard work constructed not only in the Sudan and Nigeria, but indeed in all of Britain's former colonial African territories. Commenting on foreign concern about post-Independence difficulties, Sir James observes,

"Americans have asked me: 'Why did you leave so soon, before the colonial territories were ready to rule themselves?' And when I have answered, 'Partly, I am sure, because of your pressure on us to go,' (they) have answered that they did not know then what they know now, and that we should have resisted their pressure." (p. 253)

Nigeria's first elected executive President: Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979)

Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, Turakin Sakkwato (born February 25, 1925) served as the President of Nigeria’s Second Republic (1979–1983), after the handover of power by General Olusegun Obasanjo's military government.

Shagari is a northerner of Fulani extraction and holds the aristocratic title of Turakin Sakkwato in the Sokoto Caliphate. He worked as a teacher for a brief period before entering politics in 1954 upon his election to the federal House of Representatives.

Shehu Usman Shagari was born in Shagari village to the family of Magaji Aliyu and Mariamu in 1925. His name, Usman, means "Companion". He was raised in a polygamous family, and was the sixth child born into the family. Prior to becoming Magajin Shagari, Aliyu, Shehu's father was a farmer, trader and herder.

Shagari won the 1979 election with the help of his campaign manager, Umaru Dikko. The campaign had the support of many prominent politicians in the North and among southern minorities. The party's motto was "One Nation, One Destiny" and was seen as the party best representing Nigeria's diversity.

Shagari was overthrown by General Muhammadu Buhari on New Year's Eve in 1983.

Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was first introduced under the leadership of Alhaji Aliyu Usman Shagari in 1983. Nigeria first approached the IMF for a loan of $2.3 billion, with hopes of restoring balance in its international payments. In 1986, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida allowed Nigeria to undergo structural adjustment without taking on new loans. The IMF recommended that Nigeria significantly trim its expenses, liberalize its trade, privatize state-owned corporations, and remove all subsidies, which were the typical conditions.

First Nigerian to be an aide-de-camp to a British governor-general (the last British governor-general of Nigeria- Sir James Robertson-1957: Major General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo

Major General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo (born 9 March 1928) was the former governor of the now defunct Western State of Nigeria from 1966–1971.

He became governor after Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi's death in the 1966 coup d'état.

Adeyinka Adebayo was born in Iyin Ekiti, near Ado Ekiti, (present day Ekiti State), Nigeria. He attended Christ's school in Ado-Ekiti. He later completed the Officer Cadet Training Course in Teshie, Ghana from 1950 to 1952. After passing the War Office Examination for Commonwealth cadets in 1952 as well as the West African qualifying examination in 1953, he was commissioned in the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) as the 23rd West African military officer with number WA23 and 7th Nigerian military officer with number N7 after completing the War Office Cadet Training in Eaton Hall, England. He later attended the Staff College course in Camberley (Surrey) in 1960 and the prestigious Imperial Defence College, London in late 1965 where he was the only African officer.

Adebayo was also:

• The first indigenous Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army from February 1964 – November 1965
• The first Nigerian general staff officer, Grade 2 (Intelligence) at the United Nations Headquarters in 1961.
• First national general staff officer, Grade 2 Nigerian Army Headquarters, 1961–1962
• First Nigerian to be appointed general staff officer Grade 1, 1962–1963
• Commander, Nigerian contingent in the Congo, 1963
• He served as staff officer in the United Nations peacekeeping force during the Congo crisis, 1961–1963
• Chairman, Organinization of African Unity (OAU) Defence Planning Committee, 1963–1965
• Head of Nigerian delegation to the OAU Summit in Ethiopia, November 1966
• Military governor, Western Nigeria, 1966–1971
• Commandant, Nigerian Defence Academy, 1971–1972
• Ceremonial military duties, 1972–1975
• One of the founders of, and vice chairman of the National Party of Nigeria(NPN), 1979–1983

During the Biafran (6 July 1967 - 15 January 1970), Adebayo advised against the use of force in resolving the Biafran crisis. In one of the most prescient and articulate quotations of the war, he declared:

"I need not tell you what horror, what devastation and what extreme human suffering will attend the use of force. When it is all over and the smoke and dust have lifted, and the dead are buried, we shall find, as other people have found, that it has all been futile, entirely futile, in solving the problems we set out to solve".

At the onset of war, Colonel Adebayo, then governor of the then Western State ordered all bridges into the West be demolished to prevent the Biafran rebels from reaching Lagos the capital of Nigeria via his state. The rebels went as far as Ore in present day Ondo State about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Lagos.

After the war, he was appointed by the head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, as the chairman of the committee on the reconciliation and integration of the Ibos (Biafrans) back into the Nigerian fold. He retired from the Nigerian Army with the rank of major-general, July 1975

As of 2011 Adebayo is the chairman of the Yoruba Council of Elders. His eldest son Otunba Niyi Adebayo was a governor of Ekiti State in Nigeria from 1999 to 2003. Another son, Adedayo Adebayo, played rugby for Bath and for the England National team winning six international caps between 1996 and 1999. Another of his children, Leke Adebayo is an actor, writer and producer in London and has appeared in and scripted various productions.

First Military Head of state to transfer power peacefully to a democratically elected civilian regime in Nigeria: Oluṣẹgun Mathew Okikiọla Arẹmu Ọbasanjọ, GCFR (October 1, 1979).

Founder of the first Nigerian Political Party, Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) on June 24, 1923: Herbert Macaulay. Grandson of Bishop Ajayi Crowther who was the first African bishop of the Niger Territory. In 1944 Herbert Macaulay co-founded the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) together with Nnamdi Azikiwe and became its first president. He died in Lagos on May 7, 1946. He is also Nigeria's first Civil Engineer (1893).

First Person to call Nigeria its name: Dame Flora Louisa Shaw (1852 - January 25, 1929): In an essay, which first appeared in The Times on 8 January 1897, Dame Flora Louisa Shaw who later became Lady Lugard (wife of Sir Frederick Lugard in 1902) suggested the name "Nigeria" for the British Protectorate on the Niger River. In her essay Shaw was making a case for a shorter term that would be used for the "agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States" that was functioning under the official title, "Royal Niger Company Territories". She thought that the term "Royal Niger Company Territories" was too long to be used as a name of a Real Estate Property under the Trading Company in that part of Africa. What is important in Shaw’s article was that she was in search of a new name and she coined "Nigeria" in preference to such terms as "Central Sudan" that was associated with the area by some geographers and travellers. She thought that the term "Sudan" at this time was associated with a territory in the Nile basin, the current Sudan.

She then put forward this argument in The Times of 8 January 1897 thus: "The name Nigeria applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours 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."

In 1905 Shaw wrote what remains the definitive history of Western Sudan and the modern settlement of Northern Nigeria.

First Nigerian Civilian President who died in office (not assassinated): Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua (5 May 2010). As a sign of transparency, he is the first Nigerian leader to publicly declare his assets even when the law did not require him to do so.

First Nigerian Military President to die in office (not assassinated): Gen. Sani Abacha (8 June 1998)

General Sani Abacha (20 September 1943 – 8 June 1998) was a Nigerian soldier and politician who served as the de facto President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. Abacha's regime is one of the most controversial in Nigeria's history. His regime became the first to record unprecedented economic achievements: he oversaw an increase in the country's foreign exchange reserves from $494 million dollars in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997, reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36 billion in 1993 to $27 billion by 1997, brought all the controversial privatization programs of the Babangida administration to halt, reduced an inflation rate of 54% inherited from Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to 8.5% between 1993 and 1998, all while the nation's primary commodity, oil was at an average of $9 per barrel. His administration is also credited with creating the most comprehensive and realistic blueprint for Nigeria's development through the Vision 2010 committee chaired by his predecessor Ernest Shonekan.

Abacha was born and brought up in Kano, Nigeria. He attended the Nigerian Military Training College and Mons Officer Cadet School before being commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in 1963.

Abacha was commissioned in 1963, after he had attended the Mons Defence Officers cadet Training College in Aldershot, England. Before then, he had attended the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna. Abacha's Military career is distinguished with a string of successful Coups, he is by some records the most successful coup plotter in the history of Nigeria's Military; he took part in the countercoup of July 1966, from the conceptual stage, and may have been a participant in the Lagos or Abeokuta phases of the January 1966 coup. He was also a prominent figure in three coups d'etat of later decades, the first two of which brought and removed General Muhammadu Buhari from power in 1983. When General Ibrahim Babangida was named President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1985, Abacha was named Chief of Army Staff. He was later appointed Minister of Defence in 1990.

On 17 November 1993, while he was Chair of the Joint Chiefs, General Abacha overthrew the Short-lived Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan.

Sani Abacha was the first officer in the military to rise from the rank of a 2nd lieutenant to that of a General without skipping any rank.

Abacha was the first Chief of Army Staff to spend five years on the post and he was also the first officer in the Nigerian Army to attain the rank of a full four-star General before becoming the Head of State.

Babangida would later promote him to a full general after successfully thwarting a coup attempt against him (Babangida), a rank meant for the Head of State alone, for the first time in the nation’s history, there will be two full generals at the very helm of affairs.

Abacha died in June 1998 while at the presidential villa in Abuja. He was buried on the same day, according to Muslim tradition, without an autopsy. This fueled speculation that he may have been executed extrajudicially by way of being poisoned by political rivals via prostitutes. On the contrary, the government cited his cause of death as a sudden heart attack. It is reported that he was in the company of two Indian prostitutes imported from Dubai. It is thought that these prostitutes laced his drink with a poisonous substance, making Abacha feel unwell around 4:30am. He retired to his bed and was dead by 6:15am.

After Abacha's death, Maj. Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, Nigeria's defense chief of staff, was sworn in as the country's head of state. Abubakar had never before held public office and was quick to announce a transition to democracy, which led to the election of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Abacha was married to Maryam Abacha and had seven sons and three daughters. He has fifteen grandchildren - eight girls and seven boys.

First Nigerian Military Head of State to be Assassinated in office: General Murtala Ramat Mohammed (Assassinated February 13, 1976).

First Nigerian to be elected the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): Chief Meshach Otokiti Feyide (1 Jan 1975 - 31 Dec 1976)

Chief M. O. Feyide was born march 31, 1926, in Ipele, western state, Nigeria. He has two British degrees: one in mining engineering from Cambourne School of mines and the second in petroleum engineering from imperial college of science and technology, university of london.

Except for breaks for further education, he has been a career civil servant in the federal ministry of mines and power since 1946. He worked at first as a mining engineer, but converted to petroleum engineering soon after Oil was discovered in 1956. He was appointed chief petroleum engineer in 1964, the first and only Nigerian to hold that post. His title was converted to Director of Petroleum Resources in 1970. He has thus had full legal and administrative responsibility for all oil and gas matters, including domestic distribution, almost since the birth of Nigeria as an oil producing country. He has also been chairman of Nigeria's only refinery (NPRC) and a Director of Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNOC) and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC).

He was chairman of the OPEC board of governors in 1972 and attended the Detroit meeting of world energy conference in 1974. He is the tenth Secretary General of OPEC and served for two terms from 1 Jan 1975 - 31 Dec 1976.

Under his leadership, Nigerian oil production has risen from about 100,000 barrels per day in 1964 to rank Eight in the world in producing capacity.

First African ever to be honoured with the Fellowship of the Imperial College, University of London: Dr Rilwanu Lukman.

Lukman was born in Zaria, Kaduna State on 26 August 1938. He trained as a mining engineer at the College of Arts, Science, and Technology, Zaria (now Ahmadu Bello University), and then at Imperial College, London. He earned a higher degree in mining engineering from the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Leoben, Austria (1967–1968). He obtained a degree in Mineral Economics from McGill University, Montreal in 1978, and an honorary doctorate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Bologna in Italy.

His first job in the mining industry was as an Assistant Mining Engineer with A B Statsgruvor of Sweden (1962–1964). After returning to Nigeria, Lukman was appointed an Inspector of Mines, later Senior Inspector and then Acting Assistant Chief Inspector in the Federal Ministry of Mines & Power in Jos, Plateau State (1964–1970). He then became General Manager of the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (1970–1974). By 1979 Lukman had become General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Mining Corporation, Jos.

Lukman was elected and served as Secretary General of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) from 1 January 1995 to 31 December 2000. On 18 December 2008, Lukman was appointed Minister of Petroleum Resources by Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua, holding office until March 2010.

held several ministerial positions (Mines and Power, Petroleum) under the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in the eighties and early nineties before becoming the second Nigerian to be elected the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) from 1 January 1995 to 31 December 2000. After initially serving as honorary adviser on energy, Lukman was eventually appointed minister of petroleum resources by Yar’Adua.

First Nigerian to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria: Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams, QC, SAN

First Nigerian solicitor to the Supreme Court of Nigeria (1943): Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams

First two Nigerians to be made Queen's Counsel (1958): Chief Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams and Chief H.O. Davies

First Nigerian Speaker of the House: 1959 – 1960- Jaja Anucha Ndubuisi Wachuku was the First black Speaker of the Nigerian Parliament - also called the House of Representatives (received Nigeria's Instrument of Independence - also known as Freedom Charter - on October 1, 1960, from Princess Alexandra of Kent, the Queen's representative at the Nigerian independence ceremonies). He was also Nigeria's first Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and Nigeria's first minister of Foreign Affairs.

A globally distinguished Nigerian statesman, lawyer, politician, diplomat and humanitarian, Wachuku replaced former Speaker of Nigeria's House of Representatives, Britain's Sir Frederic William Metcalfe, KCB (1886-1965). He also became the first Nigerian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and hoisted Nigeria's flag as the 99th member of the august body on 7th October 1960, which marked his instrumentality to Nigeria becoming the 58th Member State of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Monday 14th November, 1960. At the United Nations, Jaja Wachuku was elected First African Chairman of a United Nations Conciliation Commission - the Conciliation Commission to the Congo.

During his time at the UN, as well as his years as first Nigerian foreign Affairs Minister, Wachuku used his good offices to forge a good and lasting relationship with the 34th, 35th and 36th U.S. Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) respectively. He also became good friends with the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Sam Rayburn (1882-1961), U.S. Vice President Adlai Stevenson(1835-1914), American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), U.S. Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-1979), President of the Ford Motor Company Henry Ford II (1917-1987), Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1898-1978), and the colourful Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who “was the only Soviet leader ever to be removed peacefully from office - a direct result of the post-Stalin thaw he had instigated in 1956”, amongst other numerous leaders and people around the world. From 1961 to 1965, Wachuku was the First substantive Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Relations, later called External Affairs.

Foreign Minister, first indigenous Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, former Minister of Aviation and Ugo Ngwa (Eagle and Pride of the Ngwa people), Jaja Anucha Wachuku.

Matriculating in 1939, Wachuku emerged the first African, Gold Medalist, Laureate in Oratory of the Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and was elected Executive Member of the College Historical Society in 1941. He was called to the Irish bar association - Kings Inn - in November 1944, and became fully involved in Nigeria's constitutional conferences and struggle for independence from Britain. After a three year law practice in Dublin, Ireland, Wachuku returned to Nigeria in 1947, armed with B.A. Legal Science degree and LL.B Prizeman in Roman law, Constitutional Law and Criminal Law. He was also a Research Fellow at the Department of International Law, Trinity College, Dublin - with the topic: "The Juristic Status of Protectorates in International Law." From 1947 to 1996, Wachuku served as Barrister and Solicitor of The Supreme Court of Nigeria and also practiced at the West African Court of Appeal (WACA).

In 1959, Wachuku was re-elected into the House of Representatives from Aba Division; and was, subsequently, elected the first indigenous Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives from 1959 to 1960, receiving Nigeria's Instrument of Independence (the Freedom Charter) on 1st October, 1960 from Princess Alexandra of Kent, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (1936-2011), who represented her cousin the Queen of England, Elizabeth II (b.1926) at the Nigerian Independence ceremonies.

On Thursday 30 September 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria conferred on Wachuku a posthumous special Golden Jubilee Independence Anniversary Award for his outstanding contributions towards the development of Nigeria.

For primary education, Wachuku attended Infant School at St. Georges NDP Umuomainta, Nbawsi, Abia State, Nigeria. He was School Band Leader and Prefect at Government School Afikpo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria - from where he passed out in 1930 - having come first in the whole of Ogoja Province in the First School Leaving Certificate Examination. This first position got him automatic Scholarship for his secondary school education at Government College Umuahia, Abia State from 1931 to 1936.

Also, he acquired vocational skills in carpentry, farming and metal works. From 1936 to 1937, Wachuku was on Scholarship to Yaba Higher College, Lagos, Nigeria. He was withdrawn from Yaba by his father: Josaiah Ndubuisi Wachuku; and sent to Gold Coast People's College, Adidome. From there, he went to New Africa University College, Anloga in preparation for further studies abroad. While at New Africa University College, he won a Foundation Scholarship and also won the First National Prize for Gold Coast, now Ghana - in the World Essay Competition offered by New History Society of New York, USA (led by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab) - on the subject: "How Can the People of the World Achieve Universal Disarmament?" From New Africa University College, Wachuku left for Trinity College: University of Dublin, Ireland.

Wachuku was co-founder and original shareholder, with Nnamdi Azikiwe, of the African Continental Bank (ACB). And was the First Regional Director of the bank from 1948 to 1952. As ACB Director, he facilitated the opening of branches in Aba, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Enugu. Jaja Wachuku started his political career from the grassroots. In 1948, he was first nominated village councillor and later to the Nsulu Group Council. From 1949 to 1952, he was a Member of the Ngwa Native Authority, Okpuala Ngwa. In 1951, he entered regional politics and was elected Second Member for Aba Division in the Eastern Nigeria House of Assembly. From 1952 to 1953, Wachuku was elected Deputy Leader of the NCNC and Chairman of the Parliamentary Party when there was crisis in Nigeria's Eastern Region - resulting in the dissolution of the Eastern House of Assembly. Also, from 1952 to 1953, he was Chairman of the Eastern Regional Scholarship Board and Member of the Finance Committee in the House of Representatives of Nigeria. Wachuku went to the 1953 Constitutional Conference in London as Alternate Delegate and Adviser to the Nigerian Independence Party (NIP) - a break-away faction that was formed following the NCNC crisis of 1953.

In 1951, Jaja Anucha Wachuku married Rhoda Idu Oona Onumonu (1920 to 1994). She was an unwavering source of solid emotional support, care, love, strength, perseverance and worthy inspiration to Jaja Wachuku. She fondly called her husband "Anucha." Rhoda Jaja Wachuku went to primary school in Oguta, Imo State, Nigeria. And later attended Women Training College (WTC), Umuahia; as well as Achimota College, Gold Coast, now Ghana. She also studied at West of Scotland College of Domestic Science, Glasgow.

Jaja and Rhoda had five children.

Rear Admiral Nelson Bossman Soroh, MFR FSS idc, Chief of the Naval Staff (January 1973 – July 1975).

First seaman officer to become the Chief of the Naval Staff; the first able Seaman to become a cadet in the whole West Africa; the first African to be accepted for training at the Royal Navy for Sub-tech course with effect from 21 August 1958; the first Nigerian to command a warship when he was appointed to command HMNS KADUNA, taking over from an RN officer, Lieutenant Commander Walting from December 1960; the first black African to sail a warship from Europe and Nigeria. He was commanding officer of HMNS OGOJA which was sailed to Lagos 27 September 1963. He was the first commanding officer of the flagship of the NN NIGERIAN (later renamed OBUMA). He was the first senior to be appointed Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff and the appointment was made personal to him at a time when the CNS was absorbed almost totally in state matters. He was the first Admiral to publish his autobiography, A Sailor’s Dream adjudged to be a classic on the Nigerian Navy and leadership. He was even the first to start a naval magazine 'Anchors Aweigh'.

First Nigerian Ambassador to the United States: Chief Julius Momo Udochi (1960-1965).

He was a Teacher 1931-1938; a Customs Officer in the Nigerian Civil Service 1938-1945; Assistant secretary, Nigerian Secretariat 1945-1947; Hon. Provincial Secretary Nigerian Civil Service Union, Co-Editor "The Nigerian Civil Servant" 1939-1945; Called to the English Bar as a Barrister at Law (Hon. Society of the Middle Temple Inn) in 1950; He practiced Law 1950-1960; was Chairman of the Federal Non-Government Teacher's Salary Commission and a Member of the Mission to the World Bank, 1958; Hon. Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association and Member of the Committee on Legal Education, 1955-1959; Member of the House of Representatives of Nigeria, 1954-1959 and 1965-1966. First Nigerian Ambassador to the United States of America, 1960-1965; Hon. Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Mid-Western State of Nigeria, 1967-1975.

First mayor Enugu after it became a municipality in 1956 and Umaru Altine.

In 2007, Enugu hosted the first-ever film festival in the state, the Enugu International Film Festival. Held at Hotel Presidential, the festival's intent was to highlight Enugu as a "film making hub" in Africa including movie premiers and prizes for different film categories.

The first administrative Capital for Northern Nigeria was Lokoja (1899-1901), followed by Jebba (1901-1902) and Zungeru (1902-1917). But Zungeru was excessively hot and infested with mosquitoes, and so on the recommendation of Lord Luggard, Kaduna was built at mile 570 on the Lagos-Kano railway, at a point where the railway crosses the Kaduna River.

Zungeru which was Lugard's abode for 14years from 1900 was described by him on relocation to Kaduna as inhabitable because of "swarms of mosquitoes", and that it is too hot climatically.

Calabar (also referred to as 'Canaan City') is a city in Cross River State, coastal southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language. The city once served as the seat of Government of the Niger Coast Protectorate, Southern Protectorate and Oil River Protectorate, thus affectionately reffered to as the first Nigerian capital city by its people.

First Commander of the Federal Guards Company (September 1962) as a Lt. Colonel: Brigadier Wellington Duke Bassey (rtd), an Efik officer from Cross-River State. He joined the Army in 1936 and is widely commemorated as Nigeria’s first indigenous officer, short-service commissioned from the ranks in April 1949, two months before Ironsi. However, in the course of the history of the Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force, Lt. Ugboma was actually commissioned in 1948 – before Bassey. Ugboma, however, left the military shortly thereafter. A few other Nigerians were given field commissions during the first and second world wars.

During the period between 1960 and 1965 Ironsi, Ademulegun, Ogundipe, Maimalari, Adebayo, Kur Mohammed and Shodeinde all superseded him in rank for reasons that are not totally clear. It is not clear either why he did not get an opportunity to serve in the Congo, a near universal experience for any Nigerian soldier of that era.

As of the time of the January 15, 1966 coup he was commanding the Regimental Depot in Zaria. After Major General Ironsi came to power, Bassey was appointed “Acting Brigadier” and Brigade Commander of the 1st Brigade in Kaduna to take the place of Brigadier Ademulegun who had been murdered. However, Bassey was away on “medical leave” during the northern counter-coup of July 1966.

On page 44 of his book “The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War”, former Biafran Army Commander, Major General Alexander Madiebo relates a curious (but unconfirmed) story. He tells how the 1st Brigade Commander ran out of his office in June 1966 when he heard the sound of a Goods Train off-loading planks at a nearby Train Station in Kaduna. Allegedly, Brigadier Bassey had, like other officers on his Staff, wrongly interpreted the sounds as gun shots and chose to abscond, saying “they should have told me; they promised to give me sufficient warning.”

He retired from active service just before the civil war began and later emerged as Consul and later Nigerian Ambassador to Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea).

Brigadier General Adetunji Idowu Olurin: Brig-Gen. Olurin was born at Ilaro to the late Chief M.A.O. Olurin the Agoro of Ilaro and Madam Abigail Fola Olurin.

He started his early education at Ilaro at Christ Church Primary School and Secondary School at Egbado College (now Yewa College) where he obtained his West African School Certificate in 1964. He was briefly at Technical College, Ibadan now (Ibadan Polytechnic) in 1966 and a Technical Trainee at the Times Press, Apapa. He subsequently entered the Nigeria Defence Academy, Kaduna in 1967 where he obtained his NDACE (Nigerian Defence Academy Certificate of Education) and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant into the Nigerian Army in March, 1970.

As the General Staff Officer 1 Operations at the Army Headquarters in 1981, he mobilized the OAU peacekeeping force to Chad comprising of Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo). In the same year, he conducted the first Maitasine Operations in Kano to effectively put paid to the ignoble role of a religious fundamentalist.

Nigeria's first and only Interim Head of State: Chief (Dr.) Ernest Shonekan, GCFR CBE: Former Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria in the Interim National Government

Chief Shonekan hails from Abeokuta and was educated at the CMS Grammar School, Lagos and the University of London , graduating in Law in 1962, the year he was also called to the bar.

Chief Shonekan joined the Legal Department of the United Africa Company (a Unilever Group company) in 1964, rising to become Chairman and Managing Director in 1980.

In 1992 Chief Shonekan was appointment as Chairman of the Transitional Council and subsequently in 1993 briefly served as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria in the Interim National Government.

Chief Shonekan holds the traditional title of Abese of Egbaland. He was Chairman of the Vision 2010 Committee, which in 1996-97 drew up the blueprint for Nigeria 's economic development.

Currently, he is Economic Adviser to the Head of State; Chairman and Directors of numerous companies in commercial, industrial and financial sectors; Member, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Nigeria-Netherlands Chamber of Commerce; author of The Nigerian Economy (1986); and is the recipient of the Commander of the British Empire and French Legion d'Honore.

The first Attorney-General of Nigeria: Dr. Taslim Olawale Elias (1914 - 1991)

Oppenheimer Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Nuffield College and Queen Elizabeth House

In 1956 he was visiting professor of political science at the University of Delhi.

He returned to London in 1957 and was appointed a Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies. As the constitutional and legal adviser to the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (which later became the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens), he participated in the 1958 Nigerian Constitutional Conference in London. He was one of the architects of Nigeria's independence constitution.

In 1960 Elias was invited to become Nigeria's Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. He served in this capacity through the whole of the first republic. Although later dismissed after the coup d'état in January 1966, he was reinstated in November of that year.

He was a member of the United Nations International Law Commission from 1961 to 1975, he served as General Rapporteur from 1965 to 1966 and was its Chairman in 1970

He was a member of the United Nations Committee of Experts which drafted the constitution of the Congo, 1961-1962. He also helped to draft the charter of the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.), and its Protocol of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration. Elias also represented the O.A.U. and Nigeria before the International Court of Justice in the proceedings concerning the status of Namibia.

In 1966 Elias was appointed Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos.

Later in 1966, Elias was re-appointed as Nigeria's Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice (a position he held while remaining Dean and Professor at the University of Lagos), until 1972, when he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He was ousted from this position by a military regime that took power in Nigeria at the end of July 1975.

A few months later (in October 1975), he was elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. In 1979, he was elected Vice-President by his colleagues on that Court. In 1981, after the death of Sir Humphrey Waldock, the President of the Court, he took over as Acting President. In 1982, the members of the Court elected him President of the Court. He thus became the first African jurist to hold that honour. Five years later, Elias was also appointed to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

The Current Nigerian Flag was designed by a Nigerian student: Mr. Taiwo Akinkunmi, He was studying in London as at then in the year 1960.

The first ever Nigerian National Anthem (Nigeria we hail thee) was written by Miss Lynda U. Williams, a Briton. The anthem was composed by Miss Francisca Benda.

The Current National Anthem was composed by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ben Odiase. Since independence on 1 October 1960, Nigeria has used two different national anthems. The first was composed at independence and started with the phrase “Nigeria we hail thee.” The second anthem was developed in 1978 by a committee, which held a contest for new lyrics, open to all Nigerians. Five finalists were selected, and the lyrics were set to music composed by several musicians. This anthem starts with the phrase “Arise, O-compatriots.”

NIGERIA'S FIRST WOMEN POLICE: 26 April 1956 at the Southern Police ground, Ikeja with R.J.P. McLaughlan, Inspector General of the Police, reviewing the parade (his last in his present role).

The Colonial Office’s annual report for Nigeria in 1955 explained that ‘approval was obtained during the year for the employment of Women Police’. There was an initial intake of twenty women, who embarked on a six-month recruits’ training course at the Southern Police College, after which they were posted to Lagos.

Nigerian female leaders of the Women’s Party had proposed in December 1944 to British Police Commissioner King that women be employed as police constables ‘because they would be better able to prevent prostitution and to deal with female criminals’. King replied that ‘I find it quite impossible to visualise women police in action in Lagos’, arguing that the women would be unable to cope with ‘the screaming and swearing prostitutes… and the rest of the unsavoury fraternity’. A further oft-repeated argument, outlined by King, was that the people of Northern Nigeria would not accept female officers ‘because of the status of women there’ (Igbonovia, 1987, 31-32). While this correspondence illustrates the inherent discrimination and opposition to the introduction of policewomen within Africa, it also indicates, as Nina Mba argued, the collective efforts of women to improve their position and acquire rights within colonial Nigeria. Indeed, Mba argued that the establishment of women police in Nigeria came only ‘after persistent efforts by women’s organisations’.

The training programme for women recruits varied slightly from that for their male counterparts, as ‘in place of instructions in musketry, arms and riot drill, the woman studies social welfare’ (Annual Report, 1957, 157). This gender-specific distinction extended to the duties performed once qualified. Cyprian O. Okonkwo, writing in 1965, explained that ‘policewomen can be seen in large towns assisting in directing traffic, working in juvenile welfare centres, and assisting schoolchildren to cross busy roads’ (Okonkwo, 1966, 3). In the Gold Coast, a female force had been established in 1952, primarily to deal with female and juvenile offenders, and historians have noted the continued deployment of policewomen within these areas. For example, Mangai Natarajan recently argued that ‘police administrators in Africa believe that women cannot handle regular patrol duties and so they are used in service-orientated functions relating to women and children’.

First Nigerian Chief of Army Staff (COAS): Yakubu Gowon

The first man to introduce Universal Primary Education in Nigeria in the then Western Region in the year 1956: Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, GCFR, was a Nigerian nationalist, political writer and statesman; a Yoruba and native of Ikenne in Ogun State of Nigeria.

Obafemi Awolowo was born on March 6, 1909 in Ikenne,in present-day Ogun State of Nigeria. His father was a farmer and sawyer who died when Obafemi was about seven years old. He attended various schools, and then became a teacher in Abeokuta, after which he qualified as a shorthand typist. Subsequently, he served as a clerk at the famous Wesley college, as well as a correspondent for the Nigerian Times. It was after this that he embarked on various business ventures to help raise funds to travel to the UK for further studies.

Following his education at Wesley College, Ibadan (a teachers' college) in 1927, he enrolled at the University of London as an External Student. He was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) and the Bachelor of Laws by the University of London. He was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple on November 19, 1946.

In 1949 Awolowo founded the Nigerian Tribune, the oldest surviving private Nigerian newspaper, which he used to spread nationalist consciousness among his fellow Nigerians.

Awolowo was the first Leader of Government Business and Minister of Local Government and Finance, and the first Premier of the Western Region under Nigeria's parliamentary system, from 1952 to 1959. He was the official Leader of the Opposition in the federal parliament to the Balewa government from 1959 to 1963. In addition to all these, Awolowo was the first individual in the modern era to be named Leader of the Yorubas (Yoruba: Asiwaju Omo Oodua), a title which has come over time to be conventionally ascribed to his successors as the recognized political leader of the Yoruba peoples of Nigeria.

Awolowo was the first premier of the Western Region when Nigeria was elevated to the status of a federating unit in 1954. He pioneered Nigeria's free primary education and free health care programmes, He instigated the first minimum-wage policy by a Nigerian government at any level, and for establishing both the first television service in Africa (WNTV-1959) and the first Nigerian university established without a direct foreign affiliation - the University of Ife - whose creation was not inspired by or recommended by the Federal Government of the day.

Awolowo was Nigeria's foremost federalist. In his Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947) — the first systematic federalist manifesto by a Nigerian politician — he advocated federalism as the only basis for equitable national integration and, as head of the Action Group, he led demands for a federal constitution, which was introduced in the 1954 Lyttleton Constitution, following primarily the model proposed by the Western Region delegation led by him.

His party was the first to move the motion for Nigeria's independence in the federal parliament and he obtained internal self-government for the Western Region in 1957. He is credited with coining the name 'naira' for the Nigerian standard monetary unit and helped to finance the Civil War and preserve the federation without borrowing. He built the Liberty Stadium in Ibadan, the first of its kind in Africa; established the WNTV, the first television station in Africa; erected the first skyscraper in tropical Africa - the Cocoa House (still the tallest in Ibadan) and ran a widely-respected civil service in the Western Region.

Awolowo died peacefully at his Ikenne home, the Efunyela Hall (so named after his mother), on May 9, 1987, at 78, amid tributes across political and ethno-religious divides.

First civilian Governor of Lagos: Alhaji Lateef Jakande

First Nigerian Chief of the Naval Staff (March 1964): Vice Admiral Joseph Edet Akinwale Wey, OFR FSS

First indigenous Chief of Army Staff in Nigeria: Major-General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo

First democratically elected Governor of Delta State: Olorogun Felix Ovudoroye Ibru (born 7 December 1935)

First Nigerian Director of Armament Supply: Vice Admiral A Akin Aduwo CFR FSS FBIM (Third from right).

First Nigerian comedian to win a Governmental election by winning Anambara's House of Assembly election: Tony Oneweek (29 Apr 2011). He contested under action congress of Nigeria, representing Idemili North constituency. He got a total of 10,801 votes.

Nigeria’s first Aviation Minister: Mbazulike Amaechi

The first administrative Capital for Northern Nigeria was Lokoja (1899-1901), followed by Jebba (1901-1902) and Zungeru (1902-1917). But Zungeru was excessively hot and infested with mosquitoes, and so on the recommendation of Lord Luggard, Kaduna was built at mile 570 on the Lagos-Kano railway, at a point where the railway crosses the Kaduna River.

The first Nigerian Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mr. Francis C. Nwokedi was retained by the United Nations to help in the reorganization of the Civil Service in the Congo.

First African Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations - Nigeria's Godfrey K. J. Amachree, who later emerged UN Under Secretary-General for Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The First Inspector General of Police in Ondo State: Chief Sunday Ehindero

The first Military Governor of Ogun State: Major-General Seidu Ayodeloe Balogun

First Nigerian Secretary to the council of Ministers: Mr. S.O. Wey

The first Nigerian Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR): Major A. Giwa (July 19, 1963)

First combatant to be appointed Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR): Brigadier E.F. Sotomi. A full-fledged short-service combatant officer in the 1st Division during the civil war.

The first Nigerians to sit on a panel of enquiry: Sir Kitoyi Ajasa/Eric Moore

Kitoyi Ajasa and Eric Moore were born in 1866 and 1878 respectively. Both attended CMS Grammar School and were called to the Bar in 1893 and 1906 respectively. They set up two of the most successful Law Chambers in Lagos. They were selected for membership of Lugard’s Nigerian Council in 1914 and 1917 respectively and Clifford’s Legislative Council in 1922. Kitoyi Ajasa was the first Nigerian to be knighted, while Eric Moore co-founded the first major political party - NNDP. They were the first Nigerians to sit on a panel of enquiry- The Aba Women’s riot enquiry, grilling Colonial officials on their conduct relating to the incident (much to their displeasure!!).

The first Nigerian-born Army Officer: Laud (Louis) Victor Ugboma - Born at Atani in Ogbaru, Anambra State, and Initially trained as a teacher. He received emergency commission into the Army on 28th August 1948, becoming the first Nigerian born Officer. He is said to have been instrumental to the award of Commissions to other Nigerians. He relinquished his commission in April 1953 and went back to teaching at Zixton Grammar School, Ozubulu. He passed away in 2002, after proving his primacy in the officer corps.

Major-General Rabiu Aliyu - A graduate Engineer (ABU), he was among the pioneer set of the Nigerian Defence Academy 1964-1967 (Including General Sanni Abacha and Lt. General Oladipo Diya) and saw action during the Nigerian Civil War. He rose to the rank of Major-General, retiring in 1993. Alongside Lt. General Salihu Ibrahim and Major-General Ishola Williams, he refused all offers to accept political appointments throughout his career. Quotes: “The Army died the day we turned our guns on each other” and “The Military had no business in politics, none whatsoever!”c. They tried to compromise us and we refused, we were soldiers, not Politicians or businessmen.

The first person to hold both offices as a Chief of Staff and Commissioner to the Governor's office simultaneously: Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN (born June 28, 1963), the thirteenth governor of Lagos State, Nigeria.

As a candidate of the Action Congress party, now known as the All Progressives Congress, Fashola succeeded Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on April 14, 2007, and was sworn in on May 29, 2007. He was reelected on 26 April 2011.

He was Chief of Staff to his predecessor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Fashola had during his tenure as Chief of Staff was also dubbed as the Honourable Commissioner to the Governor's office, making him the first person to hold both offices simultaneously.

He is the second law graduate from the University of Benin and the first member of the Nigerian Law School graduating class of 1988 to be conferred with the professional rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He is also the First ever Chief of Staff to be so honored. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, the International Bar Association and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria. In 2006, he was appointed as Honourable Commissioner in the Government of Lagos State. He was the first person to hold both offices simultaneously and is the first Senior Advocate of Nigeria to hold office as Governor in Nigeria and the youngest elected Governor of the State.

The first indigenous Inspector-General of Police: Mr. Louis O. Edet (1964 - 1966).

Records for Lagos began in 1862, while those for the Niger Coast Protectorate were kept after 1893. Until 1900 there were no trade statistics available for the whole country.

Northern-Nigeria started being administered by the Royal Niger Company from 1886.

Northern Nigerian is proclaimed a Protectorate of the British Government from 1 January 1900 after the British Government withdrew the Charter for the Royal Niger Company to administer the region.

The first Nigerian province to adopt direct taxation: The Oyo province of South-Western Nigeria in 1918 under the Native Revenue (Southern Provinces) Ordinance Number 29 of 1918. The tax was called an Income Tax, but in practice became a Poll-Tax for the masses. The flat rate was calculated on the basis of 2.5 per cent of the gross income of the ordinary farmer, with special rates for the various trades and professions or for those possessing special types of property.

The first attempt at a titular income tax system (as distinct from a direct taxation system) in Nigeria was made in 1927 when the Income Tax (Colony) Ordinance was enacted to cover what was then the Lagos and Colony area.

The first time Direct Taxes were collected throughout the South-Eastern Provinces of Nigeria In 1928, largely with the aid of warrant chiefs.

The first time the government enacted a law directed against tax evasion: 1936; The Income Tax (Colony) (Amendment no.1) Ordinance, no.17 of 1936, made it an offence for a person to neglect or refuse to pay tax.

The first time tax innovations to the amended 1927 Income Tax Ordinance (Amended 1937) made all incomes derived from Nigeria were taxed, whether the recipient was resident in the country or not: 1939

The first time Excise Duties were first introduced on locally manufactured products: 1939 on the cigarette industry which had started production in 1933.

Nigeria’s first double taxation relief for businesses came as a result of an agreement with the British Government which was concluded in early 1948. The main result of the arrangement was that the profits of a British trading concern having a permanent establishment in Nigeria would bear the full rate of Nigeria’s company tax, and the burden of relieving the resultant double taxation was to be borne by the United Kingdom government (backdated to April 1946).

The Government of Northern Nigerian started communications flights in 1955, using two Auster aircrafts and a Piper Apache small twin-winged aircraft, for operating on the small landing strips in the region.

The proposal to create a central bank for Nigeria was first made in the House of Representatives in Lagos on 21 March 1952 but it was not debated until it came up again on 9 April. The Central Bank of Nigeria Ordinance was passed in 1958.

The Central Bank of Nigeria was established on 1 July 1959. New currency notes of £5, £1, 10s and 5s and certain new coins were issued from the same date.

The first attempt by the government to secure an improved standard of life for industrial workers was in 1929, when ‘the labour health area’ was constituted under the Labour Ordinance of 1929. The Ordinance prescribed minimum standards of housing, water supply, sanitation and medical attention and treatment. It was applied to the coal mines at Enugu in 1936, making it the first among the mining industries to attempt to provide better environmental conditions for its workers.

The first factories Ordinance was passed in 1955 and it came into force on 1 September 1956. It was based on the Factory Legislation in the United Kingdom. A factory was defined as a place employing ten or more manual workers making or processing articles, and included shipyards, dry docks, railway workshops, electricity generating stations and waterworks.

Nigeria’s first immigration act was introduced in 1963 (Immigration Act of 1963). Among other things, the act prescribed the number of foreigners vis-à-vis Nigerians to be employed by foreign entrepreneurs. It sought to control directly the establishment of any foreign business, stipulating that no alien might, either on his own account or in partnership with any person, including a Nigerian citizen, practice a profession without the prior written approval of the minister, to be obtained before the entrepreneur himself could enter the country.

The first Nigerian (post-independence) National Development Plan (1962-1968) aimed at a growth rate of at least 4 per cent compound per annum, as against 3.9 per cent per annum in the preceding ten years. The plan anticipated that, by the end of the third or fourth national plan, the Nigerian economy would have attained self-sustaining growth.

The first time the Naira Currency Note was introduced was on 1 January, 1973. The new unit of currency, the Naira, is equivalent in value to the old Nigerian 10s. There are 100 Kobo to 1 Naira. Pm 3 July 1972 the Kobo in units of 5 and 10 were brought into circulation. Other units of 2.5 and 25 Kobo, along with currency notes of Naira and its units, were introduce on 1 January 1973.

The first instance of elected African representatives on a Legislative Council in British Africa: 1922, when the colonial government set up a new constitution creating a Legislative Council of forty-six members, twenty-seven officials, and nineteen non-officials. Of the non-officials, three were to be elected by adult males in Lagos and one in Calabar.

The first Emir of Ilorin: Abd al-Salaam (1823). When the Fulani, under the leadership of Abd al-Salaam, revolted against Afonja, killing him in 1823.

The First time Abuja was officially declared Federal Capital Territory on 4th February,1976 by General Ramat Murtala Mohammed.

The first Nigerian to become the Secretary-General of Commonwealth of Nations and the first African to be President of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF): Chief Emeka Anyaoku.

The first Attorney-General of Nigeria: Dr Teslim Elias. He is also the first Nigerian Professor of Law and also the first Nigerian to have made been Chief Justice of Nigeria from the bar.

The first Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria: Dr Clement Isong.

The first political party of its kind to be established in Nigeria: The Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) - Founded in 1923 by Sir Herbert Macaulay in Lagos. The party focused heavily on Lagos issues, such as the return of Dosunmu’s royal lineage to power.

The Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) was formed in 1923 by Herbert Macaulay to take advantage of the new Clifford Constitution, the NNDP successfully organized various Lagos interest groups into a single group that was able to compete politically. The (NNDP) ran many candidates for seats in the 1922 elections for the Lagos Legislative Council, winning three seats. The party continued to dominate politics in Lagos until 1938, when the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) overtook it in elections.

The party's name was adopted in 1964 by Samuel Akintola for his party as part of a process of unseating the left-leaning Action Group led by Obafemi Awolowo from power in the Western region.

The first indigenous Governor of the Northern Region of Nigeria, after the region was incorporated into the Republic of Nigeria in 1962: Alhaji Sir Kashim Ibrahim (January 1962 – January 1966). Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello was Premier of the Northern Region between October 1954 and January 1966.

Shettima Kashim Ibrahim (10 June 1910 – 25 July 1990) was a Kanuri politician who was head of the Native Administration in Borno and was a minister for Social Services in the 1950s. He held the traditional title of Waziri of the Emirate of Borno after two previous Waziris had been forced to resign as a result of scandals in the Borno local administration.

He was a close associate of Ahmadu Bello.

Kashim Ibrahim attended Borno Provincial School and later went to the Katsina Training College to earn a teaching certificate. He started working as a teacher in 1929 at the Borno Middle School and by 1933, he had become a Provincial Visiting Teacher. He was later promoted to a Senior Visiting Teacher and education officer for the province of Borno. He joined politics in 1951-1952, when he was elected into the Northern Regional Assembly, from his position, he was made the minister for Social Services and later that of Education.

In 1956, he was appointed as the Waziri of Borno by the Shehu. Waziri Ibrahim, became the Governor of the Northern region in 1962, holding office until the military coup of 16 January 1966 that brought Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi to power.

The first publicly recognised trade union in Nigeria: The Railway Workers Union (RWU). A union formed in 1931 and among Nigeria’s first trade unions. The RWU was officially registered in January 1940 by Chief Michael Imoudu, making it the first publicly recognised trade union in Nigeria.

The first British Diplomatic Outpost in Nigeria: Lagos, established by John Beecroft in 1851.

The Flag of Nigeria was designed in 1959 and first officially hoisted on October 1, 1960. The two unique sea-green bands represent the forests and abundant natural wealth of Nigeria while the white band represents peace.

The national flag is an adaptation of the winning entry in a competition held in 1959. The original had a red sun with streaming rays placed at the top of the white stripe. This was removed by the judges and the flag has not been altered since. Like other countries, Nigeria has special ensigns for civil and naval vessels, while some of its states also have flags. The designer of the national flag was a student called Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi. He hailed from Owu in Abeokuta, Ogun State was a student of Norwich Technical College, England when he saw the advertisement in the national daily that entries were being accepted for the design of a new National Flag. Akinkunmi quickly prepared his entry and sent it to Lagos where it was eventually picked in 1958 as the best and the flag was used to celebrate an independent Nigeria on October 1, 1960; when the Union Flag (Flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) was lowered for the Nigeria Flag to take its place on the flagpole.

Akinkunmi has received numerous awards from both individuals and organisations, and presently lives in Ibadan.

The Nigerian's Anthem, "Arise Oh Compatriots, Nigeria's Call Obey" was composed by (lyrics/music):John A. Ilechukwu, Eme Etim Akpan, B. A. Ogunnaike, Sotu Omoigui and P. O. Aderibigbe/Benedict Elide Odiase. It was adopted 1978; the lyrics are a mixture of five of the top entries in a national contest.

Nigeria’s first national election to set up an independent government: 1959

The first Nigerian president to declare his re-election bid via social media: Goodluck Jonathan. On September 15, 2010, Jonathan announced on Facebook that he had decided to run for re-lection; he was the first Nigerian president to declare his re-election bid via social media. On April 18, 2011, Jonathan was re-elected as the nation's 14th head of state.

The first Nigeria major general strike: The Labour Unions strike from June – August 1945.

Nigeria’s first post independence civil war: July 1967. In May 1967, Chukwuemeka Ojukwu declares the Eastern Region of Nigeria independent and renames it the Republic of Biafra. On 19-21 September 1967, the Mid-Western Region of Nigeria is declared independent and renamed the Republic of Benin.

The first Nigerian Regional Governor to lead his region to secession: Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011) was a Nigerian military officer and politician. Ojukwu served as the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1966, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970 and a Nigerian politician from 1983 to 2011, when he died, aged 78.

Chukwuemeka "Emeka" Odumegwu-Ojukwu was born on 4 November 1933 at Zungeru in northern Nigeria to Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, a businessman from Nnewi, Anambra State in south-eastern Nigeria. Sir Louis was in the transport business; he took advantage of the business boom during the Second World War to become one of the richest men in Nigeria. He began his educational career in Lagos, southwestern Nigeria.

In 1944, he was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher who was humiliating a black woman at King's College in Lagos, an event which generated widespread coverage in local newspapers. At 13, his father sent him overseas to study in the UK, first at Epsom College and later at Lincoln College, Oxford University, where he earned a Masters degree in history. He returned to colonial Nigeria in 1956.

He joined the civil service in Eastern Nigeria as an Administrative Officer at Udi, in present-day Enugu State. In 1957, within months of working with the colonial civil service, he left and joined the military as one of the first and few university graduates to join the army: O. Olutoye (1956); C. Odumegwu-Ojukwu (1957), E. A. Ifeajuna and C. O. Rotimi (1960), and A. Ademoyega (1962).

Ojukwu's background and education guaranteed his promotion to higher ranks. At that time, the Nigerian Military Forces had 250 officers and only 15 were Nigerians. There were 6,400 other ranks, of which 336 were British. After serving in the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in the Congo, under Major General Johnson Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, Ojukwu was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1964 and posted to Kano, where he was in charge of the 5th Battalion of the Nigerian Army.

Ojukwu came into national prominence upon his appointment as military governor in 1966 and his actions thereafter. A military coup against the civilian Nigerian federal government in January 1966 and a counter coup in July 1966 by different military factions, perceived to be ethnic coups, resulted in pogroms in Northern Nigeria in which Igbos were predominantly killed. Ojukwu who was not an active participant in either coup was appointed the military governor of Nigeria's Eastern region in January 1966 by General Aguyi Ironsi.

In 1967, great challenges confronted the Igbos of Nigeria with the coup d’etat of 15 January 1966 led by Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu who was widely considered to be an outstanding progressive and was buried with full military honours when killed by those he fought against. His coup d’etat was triggered by political lawlessness, and uncontrolled looting and lacing in the streets of Western Nigeria. Unfortunately the Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello; the Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Tafawa Balewa; the Premier of the Western Region,Chief Ladoke Akintola and the Finance Minister, Chief Festus Okotie Eboh (among others including military officers) were killed in the process. The pogrom of Igbos followed in Northern Nigeria beginning in July 1966.Eventually, then Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu declared Biafra's Independence on 30 May 1967 (Biafra- 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970).

He took part in talks to seek an end to the hostilities by seeking peace with the then Nigerian military leadership, headed by General Yakubu Gowon (Nigeria's head of state following the July 1966 counter coup). The military leadership met in Aburi Ghana (the Aburi Accord), but the agreement reached there was not implemented to all parties satisfaction upon their return to Nigeria. The failure to reach a suitable agreement, the decision of the Nigerian military leadership to establish new states in the Eastern Region and the continued pogrom in Northern Nigeria led Ojukwu to announce a breakaway of the Eastern Region under the new name Biafra republic in 1967. These sequence of events sparked the Nigerian Civil War. Ojukwu led the Biafran forces and on the defeat of Biafra in January 1970, and after he had delegated instructions to Philip Efiong he went into exile for 13 years, returning to Nigeria following a pardon.

On 26 November 2011, Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu died in the United Kingdom after a brief illness, aged 78. The Nigerian army accorded him the highest military accolade and conducted funeral parade for him in Abuja, Nigeria on 27 February 2012, the day his body was flown back to Nigeria from London before his burial on Friday, 2 March. He was buried in a newly built mausoleum in his compound at Nnewi. Before his final interment, he had about the most unique and elaborate weeklong funeral ceremonies in Nigeria besides Chief Obafemi Awolowo, whereby his body was carried around the five Eastern states, Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, including the nation's capital, Abuja. Memorial services and public events were also held in his honour in several places across Nigeria, including Lagos and Niger state his birthplace.His funeral was attended by President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria and ex President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana among other personalities.

The first Nigerian population Census post independence: 1963; the results of the census were however not released.

The first time Nigeria is divided into states: 1967; Gowon transforms Nigeria’s four Regions into 12 States. As Head of State, General Aguiyi-Ironsi had abolished the regional system of government in 1966 and created a centralized administrative structure, much to the discontent of many Northerner’s leading to violent attacks against southerners in the Northern Regions.

The first Civilian Governor of the former Borno State: Mohammed Goni was born in 1942 in Kareto, Mobbar Local Government Area, Borno State. He attended Maiduguri Middle School (1953–1955), Borno Provincial Secondary School (1956–1961), Provincial Secondary School, Kano (1962–1963) and the Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (1964–1987), where he gained a BA (Administration), specializing in International Affairs.

1977, he transferred to the Nigerian National Supply Company.

In April 1979, Mohammed Goni resigned from the National Supply Company and entered politics. He was elected as the first Civilian Governor of the former Borno State, on the platform of the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP), and was in office from October 1979 to September 1983. He was also part of the Progressives Coalition led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Goni founded the Borno Radio Television (BRTV) to counter the propaganda which was being pumped out of the Federal Government owned and sponsored Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). In retrospect, his period of office was considered one of achievement when compared with his successors.

Before the 1983 elections, Goni transferred to the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), running unsuccessfully for reelection against the Nigerian People's Party (NPP) candidate Sheikh Jarma. In the case of Federal Electoral Commission v Alhadji Mohammed Goni (1983), the Supreme Court of Nigeria condemned cross-carpeting by political officeholders.

Nigeria’s first official OPEC conference attendance as a member: 10 July 1971

Nigeria joined OPEC on 10 July 1971 at the OPEC 24^th conference in Vienna, as the 11^th member (daily production average of 1.53 million barrels per day in 1971) during the Gowon military regime not long after the 1967-1970 Biafra-Nigeria civil war.

In September of 1971, only a month after Nixon pulled the rug from under them, OPEC gathered to decide what to do about the Dollar’s declining real value. In Resolution XXV.140, they decided that: “(OPEC) Member Countries shall take necessary action...to offset any adverse effects on the per barrel real income of Member Countries resulting from the international monetary developments of 15 August 1971.”

Nigeria first attended an OPEC conference as an observer in 1964 before joining the organization in 1971.

The first time Nigeria sent representative to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): 28 May 1975 (When the organisation was established under the "Treaty of Lagos). The protocols launching ECOWAS were signed in Lomé, Togo, on 5 November 1976.

Nigeria’s first head of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) Commander: Major General Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro (1991). The first ECOMOG commander was General Arnold Quainoo, a Ghanian. Major General Joshua Dogonyaro took over from Quainoo after Quainoo had left Monrovia for consultations with senior ECOWAS officials soon after the death of Samuel Doe at the hands of Prince Johnson's Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia on 9 September 1990.

Major General Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro, pioneer Nigerian Field Commander of ECOMOG who was famous for his effective blood-and-thunder style, which turned back the rebels when they were already within one mile of State House, and pushed them out of Monrovia, seen here during the First Liberian Civil War, October 1st 1990

A pioneer cadet (Regular Course 1) of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Dogonyaro saw action during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970. He also served in Lebanon and as a Colonel in 1980, served as the Commander of the Nigerian Neutral Force in Chad.

Dogonyaro is a former General Officer Commanding, 3 Armoured Division and later rose to become Chief of Defence Staff. He retired on the rank of Lieutenant General in 1993.

Anglophone ECOWAS members established ECOMOG in 1990 to intervene in the civil war in Liberia (1989–96). Nigerian scholar Adekeye Adebajo wrote in 2002 that "there was merit...in the argument that the establishment of ECOMOG did not conform to the constitutional legal requirements of ECOWAS". The Standing Mediation Committee, the body that established ECOMOG at its meeting in Banjul, Gambia on 6–7 August 1990, was 'on shaky legal foundations'. Adebajo concludes that the arguments used to establish ECOMOG had more solid grounds in politics than in law. The Defence Protocol's guidelines were not followed, and ECOMOG was justified largely on humanitarian grounds.

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida became the first Nigerian military leader to refer to himself as “President”. Previous military leaders used the benign appellation “Head of State”. According to Babangida’s press secretary Major Debo Bashorun, the decision to call Babangida “President” was taken on the spur of the moment as Babangida was in a car en route to broadcast his inaugural speech. According to Bashorun:

“The coup itself was not a nationalistic one. He was trying to protect his interests by protecting Aliyu Mohammed who later became Chief of Army Staff, among other things……I drafted his first broadcast speech, and contrary to what has been said in some quarters, I believed the idea of calling himself President came to him on our way to NTA. It was unexpected. He altered the word Head of State to president in the car. We even forgot the Coat of Arms needed in the background at NTA. I had to go back to Dodan Barracks to bring it. With us at NTA that morning were Halilu Akilu, John Shagaya and Joshua Dogonyaro” (The News, January 24, 1994)

Whatever the origins of the decision to use the title “President”, Babangida acquired for himself, the sweeping powers of an executive president as stipulated in Nigeria’s 1979 constitution. The title “President” was not merely ceremonial. Babangida immediately acquired, and was not shy about exercising greater powers than any of his military predecessors. He reserved for himself, the unilateral right to appoint the Chief of General Staff, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of the army, navy and air force, and the Inspector-General of Police. These appointments were previously made collectively by senior members of military regimes.

First president/Head of State to live in “the Aso Rock Presidential Villa”: General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida

The Nigerian Presidential Complex, officially known as "State House", and "The Aso Rock Presidential Villa" and informally as "The Rock", "The Villa" or "Aso Villa", is the office and residence of the Nigerian President. It is located in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria.

The palatial residence was completed in 1991, the same year the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida relocated the national capital from Lagos to Abuja on 12th December 1991. Aso Villa encompasses the 400 meter monolith Aso Rock, located within the Three Arms Zone of Abuja metropolis. The first president/Head of State to die in the "Aso Rock Presidential Villa" is Sanni Abacha (8 June 1998).

The first Federal Capital Territory Minister is Mobolaji Ajose-Adeogun (1976-1979). The FCTA started out with an office in Lagos in 1976 before moving operations closer to the new territory in Kaduna a year later (1977), and then again to Suleja town, where the offices were set up in makeshift caravans as development began.

The first African representative in the Lagos Local Government (established in 1861) was employed in 1872.

The first widely accepted peaceful and fair election in Nigeria: June 12, 1993 and won by Moshood Abiola

Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (August 24, 1937 – July 7, 1998), often referred to as M. K. O. Abiola, was a popular Nigerian Yoruba businessman, publisher, politician and aristocrat of the Yoruba Egba clan. He ran for the presidency in 1993, and is widely regarded as the presumed winner of the inconclusive election since no official final results were announced. He died in 1998, after being denied victory when the entire election results were dubiously annulled by the preceding military president Ibrahim Babangida because of alleged evidence that they were corrupt and unfair.

Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State. His name, Kashimawo, means "Let us wait and see". Moshood Abiola was his father's twenty-third child but the first of his father's children to survive infancy, hence the name 'Kashimawo'. It was not until he was 15 years old that he was properly named Moshood, by his parents.

MKO showed entrepreneurial talents at a very young age, at the age of nine he started his first business selling firewood. He would wake up at dawn to go to the forest and gather firewood, which he would then cart back to town and sell before going to school, in order to support his old father and his siblings. He later founded a band at age fifteen where he would perform at various ceremonies in exchange for food. He eventually became famous enough to start demanding payment for his performances and used the money to support his family and his secondary education at the Baptist Boys High School Abeokuta, where he excelled. He was the editor of the school magazine The Trumpeter, Olusegun Obasanjo was deputy editor. At the age of 19 he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons ostensibly because of its stronger pan-Nigerian origin compared with the Obafemi Awolowo-led Action Group.

Moshood Abiola was twice voted international businessman of the yearand received numerous honorary doctorates from universities all over the world. In 1987 he was bestowed with the golden key to the city of Washington D.C., and he was bestowed with awards from the NAACP and the King center in the USA, as well as the International Committee on Education for Teaching in Paris, amongst many others. In Nigeria, the Oloye Abiola was made the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland. It is the highest chieftaincy title available to commoners amongst the Yoruba, and has only been conferred by the tribe 14 times in its history. This in effect rendered Abiola the ceremonial War Viceroy of all of his tribespeople. According to the folklore of the tribe as recounted by the Yoruba elders, the Aare Ona Kakanfo is expected to die a warrior in the defense of his nation in order to prove himself in the eyes of both the divine and the mortal as having been worthy of his title.

Abiola's involvement in politics started early on in life when he joined the NCNC at age 19. In 1979, the military government kept its word and handed over power to the civilian. As Abiola was already involved in politics, he joined the ruling national party of Nigeria in 1980 and was elected the chairman of his party. Re-election was done in 1983 and everything looked promising since the re-elected president was from Abiola’s party and based on the true transition to power in 1979; Abiola was eligible to go for the post of presidential candidate after the tenure of the re-elected president. However, his hope to become the president was shortly dashed away for the first time in 1983 when a military coup d'état swept away the re-elected president of his party and ended civilian rule in the country. After a decade of military rule, General Ibrahim Babanginda came under pressure to return democratic rule to Nigeria. After an aborted initial primary, Abiola stood for the presidential nomination of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and beat Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to secure the presidential nomination of the SDP ahead of the June 12th 1993 presidential elections. Abiola had managed to work his way out of poverty through hard work and symbolised the aspirations of many downtrodden Nigerians. His commitment to the plight of ordinary Nigerians included establishing Abiola bookshops to provide affordable, locally produced textbooks in the 1980s when imported textbooks became out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians as the naira was devalued. He also made available daily necessities such as rice and soap at affordable prices in the market.

For the 12 June 1993 presidential elections, Abiola's running mate was Baba Gana Kingibe. He overwhelmingly defeated his rival, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. The election was declared Nigeria's freest and fairest presidential election by national and international observers, with Abiola even winning in his Northern opponent's home state.Abiola won at the national capital, Abuja, the military polling stations, and over two-thirds of Nigerian states. The reason why the election was so historic, was because men of Northern descent had largely dominated Nigeria's political landscape since independence. The fact that Moshood Abiola (a Southern Muslim) was able to secure a national mandate freely and fairly remains unprecedented in Nigeria's history. However, the election was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida, a political crisis that ensued which led to General Sani Abacha seizing power later that year. During preparations for the 2011 Nigerian Presidential elections there were calls from several quarters to remember MKO Abiola .

The famed Nigerian Pastor Tunde Bakare is said to have predicted the annulment to Abiola and warned him against contesting.

In 1994 Moshood Abiola declared himself the lawful president of Nigeria in the Epetedo area of Lagos Island, an area mainly populated by impoverished Nigerians. He had recently returned from a trip to win the support of the international community for his mandate. After declaring himself president he was declared wanted and was accused of treason and arrested on the orders of military President General Sani Abacha, who sent 200 police vehicles to bring him into custody. MKO Abiola has been referred to as Nigeria's greatest statesman.

Moshood Abiola was detained for four years, largely in solitary confinement with a Bible, Qur'an, and fourteen guards as companions. During that time, Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and human rights activists from all over the world lobbied the Nigerian government for his release. The sole condition attached to the release of Chief Abiola was that he renounces his mandate, something that he refused to do, although the military government offered to compensate him and refund his extensive election expenses. For this reason Chief Abiola became extremely troubled when Kofi Annan and Emeka Anyaoku reported to the world that he had agreed to renounce his mandate after they met with him to tell him that the world would not recognize a five year old election.

Abiola died under suspicious circumstances shortly after the death of General Abacha. Moshood Abiola died on the day that he was due to be released, on July 7, 1998. While the official autopsy state that Abiola died of natural causes, Abacha's Chief Security Officer, al-Mustapha has alleged that Moshood Abiola was in fact beaten to death. al-Mustapha, who is still being detained by the Nigerian government, claims to have video and audiotapes showing how Abiola was beaten to death. The final autopsy report, which was produced by a group of international coroners has never been publicly released. Irrespective of the exact circumstances of his death, it is clear that Chief Abiola received insufficient medical attention for his existing health conditions.

As recounted at the time in a BBC interview with special envoy Thomas R. Pickering, an American delegation, which included Susan Rice, visited Abiola and during their meeting with him, Abiola fell ill, with what was presumed to be a heart attack which caused his death.

The first state in Nigeria to incorporate aspects of the Shari’a into its criminal law: Zamfara State (2000)

Nigeria’s first successful transfer of power from one elected president to another: May 2007 when Umaru Yar’Adua was sworn in to replace Olusegun Obasanjo.

Yar'Adua was born into an aristocratic Fulani family in Katsina; his father, a former Minister for Lagos during the First republic, held the royal title of Mutawalli (custodian of the treasury) of the Katsina Emirate, a title which Yar'Adua inherited. He started his education at Rafukka Primary School in 1958, and moved to Dutsinma Boarding Primary School in 1962. He attended the Government College at Keffi from 1965 until 1969. In 1971 he received a Higher School Certificate from Barewa College. He attended Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria from 1972 to 1975, obtaining a B.Sc. degree in Education and Chemistry, and then returned in 1978 to achieve an M.Sc. degree in Analytical Chemistry.

Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua married Turai Umaru Yar'Adua of Katsina in 1975; they had seven children (five daughters and two sons). Their daughter Zainab is married to Kebbi State governor Usman Saidu Nasamu Dakingari. Their daughter Nafisat is married to Bauchi State governor Isa Yuguda. Yar'Adua was married to Hauwa Umar Radda as a second wife from 1992 to 1997. They had two children.

In the presidential election, held on 21 April 2007, Yar'Adua won with 70% of the vote (24.6 million votes) according to official results released on 23 April. The election was highly controversial. Strongly criticized by observers, as well as the two primary opposition candidates, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC), its results were largely rejected as having been rigged in Yar'Adua's favor.

After the election, Yar'Adua proposed a government of national unity. In late June 2007, two opposition parties, the ANPP and the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), agreed to join Yar'Adua's government. On 28 June 2007, Yar'Adua publicly revealed his declaration of assets from May (becoming the first Nigerian Leader to do so).

In 1999 he ran for the Governorship election of Katsina state and won. He was re-elected in 2003. He was the first governor to publicly declare his assets.

In the year of 2000, during his administration as governor, Katsina became the fifth northern Nigerian state to adopt sharia, or Islamic law. In 2002 Amina Lawal, a woman from Katsina, was sentenced to death by stoning by a sharia court in the town of Bakori for committing adultery; the story attracted international attention. Her sentence was at first upheld by a court in the town of Funtua, then overturned a year later following an appeal.

According to a public hearing that was carried out shortly after his death in May 2010, there has never being a Governor like him in the history of Katsina State.

The first Nigerian to serve as a military Head of State and be democratically elected as a civilian president: Olusegun Obasanjo

Oluṣẹgun Mathew Okikiọla Arẹmu Ọbasanjọ, GCFR; born circa 5 March 1938, is a former Nigerian Army general who was President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. A Nigerian of Yoruba descent, Obasanjo was a career soldier before serving twice as his nation's head of state, as a military ruler from 13 February 1976 to 1 October 1979 and as a democratically elected president from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007.

His current home is Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State, where he is a nobleman as the holder of the chieftaincy titles of the Balogun of the Owu Lineage and the Ekerin Balogun of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

Ọbasanjọ was born in Ogun State; and grew up in Owu (Abeokuta). His first name, Olusegun, means "The Lord is victorious".

The Oloye Obasanjo's first wife, Mrs. Oluremi (Remi) Obasanjo, is the mother of his oldest children, the most well-known being Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, a former Senator of Ogun State.

On 23 October 2005 the President lost his wife, Stella Obasanjo, First Lady of Nigeria the day after she had a abdominoplasty in Spain. In 2009 the doctor only known as 'AM' was sentenced to one year in jail for negligence in Spain and ordered to pay restitution to her son of about $176,000. Obasanjo has many children, who live throughout Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Stella was not the first wife he lost. In 1987, his ex-wife Lynda was ordered out of her car by armed men, but was fatally shot for failing to move quickly. Obasanjo is also the first Nigerian to be awarded Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (G.C.F.R) of Nigeria; in 1981 by Shehu Shagari. In 2005, President Obasanjo launched Nigeria's first National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure that every Nigerian has access to basic health care services.

His son, Dare Obasanjo, is a Principal Program Manager for Microsoft.

The first Nigerian ‘First Lady’ to die while her husband was still President/Head of State: Stella Obasanjo. Stella Obasanjo (14 November 1945 – 23 October 2005) was the First Lady of Nigeria from 1999 until her death. On 23 October 2005 the President lost his wife, Stella Obasanjo, First Lady of Nigeria the day after she had an abdominoplasty in an exclusive clinic in Spain. In 2009 the doctor only known as 'AM' was sentenced to one year in jail for negligence in Spain and ordered to pay restitution to her son of about $176,000.

The physician had misplaced a tube designed for a liposuction procedure into Obasanjo's abdominal cavity. She sustained a punctured colon and lacerated liver and died two days after the surgery. The doctor did not immediately answer his mobile phone when called after performing the operation and reportedly left Obasanjo for four hours. Had she been hospitalised in time, it is thought she might have survived her injuries.

Stella Obasanjo was from Iruekpen, Esan West, Edo State. Her father, Dr. Christopher Abebe, was chief of the United Africa Company (UAC) and the first indigenous (African) chairman of UAC Nigeria. Her mother, Therasa, graduated from Pitman's College, London. Stella Abebe began her education at Our Lady of the Apostles Primary School. She enrolled at St. Theresa's College, where she obtained her West African School Certificate in 1964 with grade one. Two years later she obtained the higher school certificate. She was admitted to the University of Ife now (Obafemi Awolwo University), Ile-Ife, for a bachelor's degree in English, attending from 1967 to 1969. In 1969 she transferred to the UK to complete her studies, this time round, in insurance, in London and Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1970 to 1974. She completed her education with a certificate as confidential secretary from the Pitman College in 1976. She returned to Nigeria in 1976 and soon after married General Obasanjo, who had become Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, following the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed.] When she became Nigeria's First Lady in 1999, following the election of her husband as president, Obasanjo established Child Care Trust, for the care of underprivileged and/or disabled children. As first Lady of Nigeria, she joined the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation and on 6 February 2003, she declared the day the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.

The first woman to serve on the Lagos Town Council: Lady Oyinkan Morenike Abayomi – the daughter of Sir Kitoye Ajasa II, the first Nigerian to be knighted by the British Empire. Abayomi married Sir Dr. Kofoworola Abayomi, a physician and one of the leaders of the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1934 and she is the founder of the Nigeria Women’s Party (NWP).

In 1927, she founded the British West African Educated Girls’ Club (later renamed the Ladies’ Progressive Club) in order to raise funds for girls’ education and the establishement of a girls’ secondary school in Lagos. Sir Hugh Clifford, Lady Clifford and the Educational Department had promised her aid if she could demonstrate that the Lagos populace took her project seriously. That same year, in direct response to her club’s effort, Queen’s College was established, the only government secondary school for girls until the 1950s.

Lady Abayomi became influential in the AG, and in 1956 was appointed to the Western House of Assembly. Two years later she was instrumental in forming the AG’s Western Regional Women’s Conference, serving as its president for the first year.

Nigeria’s first planned city: Abuja, located in the Federal Capital Territory; it is also ranked amongst Africa’s fastest growing cities. It replaced Lagos as Capital of Nigeria on 12 December 1991. The location was chosen and announced in 1976 by Murtala Mohammad to emphasize the central government’s commitment to ending regional favouritism.

The first Economic adviser to the government of Nigeria (1962-67): Pius Okhigbo

The first indigenous chief justice of Nigeria Justice: Adetokunbo Adegboyega Ademola (Appointed 1958 - 1972)

Born on September 1, 1906, at Abeokuta, capital city of Egbaland, Sir Adetokunbo studied law between 1928-31 at Cambridge University, obtaining a BA degree. He received his MA. later. He was called to the bar (Middle Temple ) in London in 1934, and later became the only African ever appointed a bencher of the Inn. Back in Nigeria, Sir Adetokunbo worked from 1934-35 as crown counsel at the then Attorney- General's Office, then for a year as assistant secretary at the southern secretariat in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria. From 1936, Sir Adetokunbo practiced until 1939, when he was appointed Magistrate of the protectorate Court. In 1949 he became the third Nigerian to be appointed a Pusine Judge. In 1948 he served as a member of the commission for the revision of court legislation.

In 1955, a year before western Nigeria became internally self-governing, Sir Adetokunbo was appointed Chief Justice for Western Nigeria, thus becoming the first head of the judiciary anywhere in Nigeria. Sir Adetokunbo's string of 'firsts' continued when, three years later, he became the first Nigerian Chief Justice of the entire Federation of Nigeria. He was knighted in January, 1957, and in 1963 was appointed one of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Councilors. Later that year, the Queen awarded him a KBE. He married Miss Kofo Moore, the first West African woman graduate- she took a BA at Oxford- and daughter of the late Eric Moore, first Lagos member of the United Nations committee of experts advising on labor conventions and regulations. He was also a member of the United Nations International Public Service Advisory Board, member of the International commission of Jurists, executive member of World peace through Law, vice president of the world Association Jurists, president of the Nigerian Red Cross Association, chairman of Nigeria Cheshire homes, member of the International Olympic committee, member of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and president of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity. Sir Adetokunbo is also one of the founders and chairman of the Metropolitan Club, a founder member of the Island Club and vice patron of the Yoruba Club. Sir Adetokunbo was in the forefront of several peace moves in Nigeria.

The first Senate President than ran a full 4yr plenary session: Senator David Mark

The first Pharmacist Governor in Nigeria: Danbaba Suntai (From Taraba, Nigeria)

Nigeria's first Minister of finance: Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh.

Nigeria's first Director of Ordnance: Major General Philip Efiong, Akankang Ibiono Ibom (1925-2003) joined the Nigerian Armed Services on 28 July 1945. He quickly rose through the service ranks until 11 January 1956 when he received the Queen's Commission after his officer cadet training at Eaton Hall in Chester. England later commissioned him for duty in the Rhine in West Germany. Efiong was then transferred to the Nigerian Army Ordnance Corps and then to England for further training after a peace keeping stint in the Republic of Congo in 1961. He was Nigeria's first Director of Ordnance. He also had a son who was named after him. Efiong became Chief of General Staff of Biafra under Head of State, Odumegwu Ojukwu during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Efiong assumed leadership in this situation of turmoil, starvation, and collapse. He became Head of State of Biafra on 8 January 1970 and on 12 January announced surrender . Efiong died 6 November 2003, at the age of 78 less than two weeks before his 79th birthday. (Picture on website)

The first Nigerian High Court Judge: Justice Olumuyiwa Jibowu (1899- 1959).

Born in Abeokuta he attended Abeokuta Grammar School and Oxford University. He was called to the Bar in London in 1923. In 1942 he became the first Nigerian High Court Judge. In 1957 he was appointed Chief Justice of Lagos High Courts and Southern Cameroons. He later became the first African to swear-in a Colonial Governor-general and to serve in the Supreme Court.

Nigeria’s first indigenous officer: c.1940s Lieutenant W.D. Bassey 2nd Bn., Nigeria Regt.

Brigadier Wellington Duke Bassey (rtd), an Efik officer from Cross-River State. He joined the Army in 1936 and is widely commemorated as Nigeria’s first indigenous officer, short-service commissioned from the ranks in April 1949, two months before Ironsi. However, in the course of the history of the Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force, Lt. Ugboma was actually commissioned in 1948 – before Bassey. Ugboma, however, left the military shortly thereafter. A few other Nigerians were given field commissions during the first and second world wars.

As a Lt. Colonel, Bassey was the first Commander of the Federal Guards Company in September 1962, a rather curious appointment for a Lt. Colonel.

During the period between 1960 and 1965 Ironsi, Ademulegun, Ogundipe, Maimalari, Adebayo, Kur Mohammed and Shodeinde all superseded him in rank for reasons that are not totally clear. It is not clear either why he did not get an opportunity to serve in the Congo, a near universal experience for any Nigerian soldier of that era.

As of the time of the January 15, 1966 coup he was commanding the Regimental Depot in Zaria. After Major General Ironsi came to power, Bassey was appointed “Acting Brigadier” and Brigade Commander of the 1st Brigade in Kaduna to take the place of Brigadier Ademulegun who had been murdered. However, Bassey was away on “medical leave” during the northern counter-coup of July 1966.

On page 44 of his book “The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War”, former Biafran Army Commander, Major General Alexander Madiebo relates a curious (but unconfirmed) story. He tells how the 1st Brigade Commander ran out of his office in June 1966 when he heard the sound of a Goods Train off-loading planks at a nearby Train Station in Kaduna. Allegedly, Brigadier Bassey had, like other officers on his Staff, wrongly interpreted the sounds as gun shots and chose to abscond, saying “they should have told me; they promised to give me sufficient warning.”

He retired from active service just before the civil war began and later emerged as Consul and later Nigerian Ambassador to Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea).

Photograph courtesy of Amanda Kirby Okoli

The first and only foreigner to become Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Nigeria: Sir Darnley Arthur Alexander (1975-1979)

Nigeria's first ethnic Igbo to assume the post of police Inspector General: Sir Mike Mbama Okiro was the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force from 2007 to 2009.

Mike Okiro was born on July 24, 1949 in Oguta, Imo State. He is the Agunechemba I of Egbema, and Nigeria's first ethnic Igbo to assume the post of police Inspector General. He holds a degree in English Language from the University of Ibadan, a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Jos and an LLB.

He joined the Nigerian Police in 1977. Operational and command positions include serving as DPO in several police stations, Member, Armed Robbery & Firearms Tribunal, Lagos State, Assistant & Deputy Commissioner of Police (operations), Lagos State and later Benue State. He received a double promotion from Commissioner of Police when he became Deputy Inspector-General of Police. In June 2009, Okiro released a book titled "Policing Nigeria in a Democracy".

Shortly before his retirement in July 2009, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) accused Mike Okiro of failing to repay a N166 million loan he obtained between 2000 and 2001 from the Lead Bank, since liquidated. Okiro was said to have obtained the loan to finance a pipeline contract awarded by Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) to his firm Hekiro Nigeria Limited. Okiro threatened court action against the NDIC unless it tendered an unreserved apology, but the NDIC maintained their position.

Speaking in August 2009 after a farewell parade in his honour in Abuja, Mike Okiro spoke of problems with the system where the IGP does not have the authority to fulfil his responsibilities. He also said "The unkindest cut is the attack of a public officer after he has left office with the unholy belief that he is no longer in a position to defend himself."

The first Executive Chairperson of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC): Mallam Nuhu Ribadu (born November 21, 1960) is the Chairman of the Petroleum Revenue Task Force and a former Nigerian government anti-corruption official. He was the pioneer Executive Chairman of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the government commission tasked with countering corruption and fraud. In April 2009, he became a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development.

He lived in exile until 2010 when he returned to Nigeria and declared his intention to run for President of Nigeria under the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). On Friday, 14 January 2011, Nuhu Ribadu was adopted as the presidential candidate of the ACN.

The first female Executive Chairperson of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC): Chief (Mrs.) Farida Mzamber Waziri was appointed Executive Chairperson of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in May 2008. She succeeded Nuhu Ribadu in this post.

Farida Mzamber Waziri was born on July 7, 1946 and raised in Gboko, Benue State. She obtained her law degree from the University of Lagos and obtained a Masters degree in Law from the Lagos State University. In 1996, she gained a Masters Degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan. She is the author of Advance Fee Fraud, National Security and the Law. Mrs. Waziri has been used as an alias for many email scams.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is a Nigerian law enforcement agency that investigates financial crimes such as advance fee fraud (419 fraud) and money laundering. The EFCC was established in 2003, partially in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which named Nigeria as one of 23 countries non-cooperative in the international community's efforts to fight money laundering. The agency has its head office in Abuja.

Nigeria’s first indigenous Inspector General of Police: Louis Orok Edet (1914-1979) was the Inspector General of the Nigerian Police Force from 1964-1966. He was the first indigenous Nigerian to occupy the position. He was briefly the chairman of the Nigerian Football Association in the early 1960s.

He was born in Calabar to the family of Edet Essien and Geraldine Orok.

After the end of the Nigerian civil war, he devoted his time to helping war refugees and later became a commissioner for social services. He established a charity organization to continue his effort.

Chief A.O Bola – The first Akoko man to be Federal Permanent Secretary. Akoko is a large Northeast Yoruba settlement in Yorubaland, the area spans from Ondo state to Edo state in southwest Nigeria.

The first democratically elected Governor of Delta State: Olorogun Felix Ovudoroye Ibru

The first official state visit by a sitting U.S. president to Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa: Jimmy Carter (1978)

The first Nigerian former Head of State to contest and lose 3 consecutive Presidential Elections:Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd). He has contested for the post of Nigeria presidency 3 times, First (2003) and Second (2007) under (ANPP) while his last his through his own founded party then Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 20011.

Muhammadu Buhari (born December 17, 1942) was a Major General in the Nigerian Army and a former military ruler of Nigeria from December 31, 1983 to August 27, 1985. The term Buharism is ascribed to the Buhari military government. His ethnic background is Fulani, and his faith is Islam; he is a native of Daura in Katsina State of Nigeria. Buhari founded Nigeria's first secret police force, the National Security Organization. He is the first Nigerian Head of State to try and kidnap a person on foreign soil; the British officials found Buhari's former transportation minister (Umaru Dikko) drugged in a crate marked for shipment to Lagos.

The first National Labour Congress Chairman: Comrade Alhaji Hassan Adebayo in 1978, after the unification of all major unions into one national union.

Comrade Alhaji Hassan Adebayo (HA) Sunmonu, OON, Secretary-General, Organization of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) based in Accra, is 70 years old today. The pioneer founding President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and twice elected NLC President (1978 to 1984) was born with his twin identical brother, Hussein Sunmonu.

The first African country to support Biafra: Tanzania (Julius Kambarage Nyerere)

This put a socialist slant to the struggle and led to the U.S. openly supporting Nigeria. It also pushed Ojukwu to openly canvas China’s help (29 September, 1968, Ojukwu was reported to have sent a letter of appreciation to Chairman Mao Tse Tung expressing “our deep gratitude to you personally and our dear comrades in China, for increasing understanding and sympathy that you are showing in our struggle against Anglo-American imperialism and Soviet revisionism”).

In September 1968 the Chinese government publicly backed the bid by Nigeria’s Ibo-dominated Biafra region to secede from the federation. A statement by Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi at the time linked this support to the Soviet Union’s backing of the Nigerian government on the issue, though another factor appears to have been the support given to Biafra’s cause by China’s key ally in Africa at the time, Tanzania. China covertly supplied the Biafran administration with small quantities of light arms, souring China’s relations with the Nigerian government, but making no discernible difference to the outcome of the war, which ended with Biafra’s collapse in January 1970.

The first Nigerian head of state of Nigeria to establish diplomatic relationship and Visit China: Chairman Mao Zedong met with the then Head of State of the Military Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces, General Yakubu Gowon in Beijing (On September 10, 1974). Formal diplomatic ties were established only in 1971. (Source: Chinese Embassy). A Chinese delegation had visited Nigeria in 1964 seeking the establishment of diplomatic ties, however without much success, making it the first attempt at a diplomatic relations from China with Nigeria.

The first elected Mayor of Enugu: Malam Umaru Altine (1952 - 1958), a northern Fulani man was the first elected Mayor of Enugu, in the east, and was even re-elected for a second term.

Malam Umaru Altine was the Vice Chairman of the NCNC Youth Association at Enugu. He identified with the NCNC as a political party. During elections NCNC decided to nominate him at Coal Camp where he lived. He contested twice for the post of Mayor of Enugu against Igbo opponents and won twice. The second election was even more significant in the sense that NCNC had asked him to step down for somebody else and he refused. Instead, he resigned from NCNC, ran as an Independent candidate and beat the NCNC candidate.

The first issue of Nigeria’s Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) Bonds floatation: 2003.

The first Emir of Ilorin: Sheikh Alimi. Ilorin's 'Oba' Afonja utilized Fulani warriors to help rebel against the Oyo Empire. The warriors after defeating Oyo took over Ilorin and Sheikh Alimi, their leader became the first Emir.

The first elections in Nigerian history: 1923. This was a product of the Clifford Constitution of 1922. This Council comprised 30 official members, 15 unofficial ones nominated by government, and three unofficial members representing the municipal areas of Lagos and Calabar. The Council had a limited number of elected members and African members selected to represent the interest of those parts of the Colony and Southern Protectorate not represented by elected members. But the franchise was restrictive and limited to males who were British subjects or natives of the Protectorate with 12 months residential qualification and an income of not less than £100 a year. The first elections in Nigerian history were held in September 1923 and the Council was inaugurated in October, of the same year.

The Clifford Constitution was significant in the following respects: It introduced the elective principle and stimulated the formation of political organi- sations notably, Herbert Macaulay's Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) in 1923 and the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) in 1934, founded by H. 0. Davies, Dr J. C. Vaughan, Dr Kofo Abayomi, Ernest Ikoli, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo which later transformed into the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1936. The colonial administration was not responsive to Nigerian public opinion as a means of vetting arbitrary actions.

The first election in Nigeria was conducted in 1923 as a result of constitutional amendment made to Nigeria’s administrative settings which was later followed by 1946 election to fill the then regional and central legislature. In 1951, another election was conducted among 3 different political parties and subsequently followed in preparation for independence by 1959 elections.

The first time universal adult suffrage became a reality in Nigeria in the 1979 elections when women in the North were allowed for the first time to participate in elections.

Women in Nigeria’s southern region were enfranchised in stages, beginning in 1950, whereas women in the northern region (predominantly Muslim) were not. Southern women voted and contested offices in the 1959 federal elections, but no northern women were allowed to do so. Northern women finally received their full electoral franchise (to vote and contest office) in 1976” (p. 286)

Federal suffrage for women in the Eastern Region – 1954

Federal suffrage for women in the Western Region who were taxpayers – 1955

Federal suffrage for women (excluding the North) to Vote and to take part in elections: 1958

Federal suffrage for women was exercised in the South – 1959

Federal suffrage for women in the North - 1975

Nigeria’s first national election to set up an independent government: 1959. Northern politicians won a majority of seats in the Parliament in 1959.

The first national election conducted solely by indigenous Nigerians: 1964

The first Nigeria Regional Elections: Western Nigeria 1951 Elections (24 September 1951)

At the close of polls on 24 September 1951, the Action Group had won 38 of the 72 seats in contention in the Regional Assembly. There were a total of 80 seats. Lagos had five seats in the West Regional Assembly all won by the NCNC in the election of 20 November 1951, while Benin had three won by Otu Edo candidates in the election of 6 December 1951. The poll had been postponed in Lagos and Benin following security concerns. Of the 68 candidates on the list furnished by the Action Group to the Government PR Department, 38 of the elected AG members were from that list. And they were as follows: Ijebu Remo - Obafemi Awolowo and M.S. Sowole; Ijebu Ode - Rev. SA Banjo and S.O. Awokoya; Oyo - Bode Thomas, Abiodun Akerele, ABP Thomas, TA Amao and SB Eyitayo; Osun - S.L. Akintola, J.O. Adigun, JA Oroge, S.I. Ogunwale, I.A. Adejare, J.A. Ogunmuyiwa and S.O. Ola.

The first elected representative of Jos into the Northern Regional Assembly: Alhaji Garba Baka-Zuwa-Jere, while Alhaji Isa Haruna represented Jos in the pre-indendence conference of Nigeria.

Nigeria’s first anti-terrorism act: approved 17 February 2011. It gives law enforcers greater powers to detain and prosecute suspects and judges more guidance on handing down punishments.

The bill gives the police and security forces powers to seal off a property or vehicle without a search warrant and allows judges to order the detention of suspects for up to 30 days if they feel it is in the interests of public safety.

All terrorism cases will now be heard at Nigeria's Federal High Court where, depending on the severity of the charges, judges can pass sentences of up to 30 years in prison.

The first victim of the Nigerian Islamist terror group to testify before the U.S Congress: Habila Adamu, the sole survivor of a Boko Haram attack in Yobe State in November 2012.

The first Premier of the Western Region of Independent Nigeria: Samuel Ládòkè Akíntọ́lá (Oct 1960 - May 1962)

Samuel Ládòkè Akíntọ́lá or "S.L.A."(July 6, 1910 – January 15, 1966) was a Nigerian politician, lawyer, aristocrat and orator who was born in Ogbomosho, south west Nigeria. In addition to serving as one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria, he was also elevated to the position of Oloye Aare Ona Kakanfo XIII of the Yoruba.

The first Governor (Aug 1963 - Feb 1964) and first Premier (Aug 1963 - Jan 1966) of Mid-Western Region of Independent Nigeria: Dennis Chukude Osadebay. He was administrative Premier till February 1964.

Dennis Chukude Osadebay (June 29, 1911—December 26, 1994) was a Nigerian politician, poet, journalist and former premier of the now defunct Mid-Western Region of Nigeria, which now comprises Edo and Delta State. He was one of the pioneering Nigerian poets who wrote in English.

As a politician, he detested party politics and tried to form unbiased opinions on important matters of the period. He was also a leader of the movement to create a Mid-Western region during the Nigerian First Republic.

The first Governor of Western Region of independent Nigeria: Sir Titus Martins Adesoji Tadeniawo Aderemi I (Oct 1960 - Dec 1962)

Sir Titus Martins Adesoji Tadeniawo Aderemi I, alias Adesoji Aderemi, KCMG (15 November 1889 – 7 July 1980), was a Nigerian political figure and Yoruba traditional ruler as the Ooni (King) of Ife (or Ilé-Ifẹ̀, as it is properly known) from 1930 until 1980. He also served as President of the Western House of Chiefs and the Legislative Council of Nigeria. He served as the governor of Western Region, Nigeria between 1960 and 1967.

Adesoji Aderemi was known as a very wealthy man and had a large family of many wives and children.

During the colonial era, the Oba Ooni gained a considerable amount of power due to the colonial policy of indirect rule and being labeled a first class Oba among traditional rulers in Yorubaland. The policy of indirect rule was used to ensure native awareness and consultations about colonial policies affecting the regions. The British leaned on existing native political structures and hierarchy, particularly the Nigerian traditional rulers, for political consultation and tax collection. Later on, the Ooni with the consent of the leading Yoruba political leaders used his position to close the gaps of exploitation of divisional differences among Yorubas and tried fervently to rally the Yoruba towards a common goal. In 1962, the king acting as governor used his power to remove the premier of the region, sensing the premier did not have the support of the majority members of the House of Assembly. The event escalated the political rivalries in the region.

The first Governor of the Northern Region of independent Nigeria: Sir Gawain Westray Bell (Oct 1960 – 1962)

Sir Gawain Westray Bell (21 January 1909 – 26 July 1995) was a British colonial administrator who became the Governor of Northern Nigeria.

Bell was born in Cape Town, South Africa to an executive of the New Zealand Shipping Company. At 10, his family moved back to Cumberland, England where he attended the Dragon School, Winchester and Hertford colleges in Oxford.

In 1957 the Colonial Office recruited Bell to become the Governor of Northern Nigeria, where he worked closely with Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. Bello was regarded by the British as difficult to work with; Bell came to his new job with an open mind and won over Bello to the point that he was asked to remain in his post as governor after Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom. He stepped down as governor in 1962.

The first Premier of the Northern Region of independent Nigeria: Sir Ahmadu Bello (Oct 1960 – Jan 1966)

Sir Ahmadu Bello (June 12, 1910 – January 15, 1966) was a Nigerian politician, and was the first premier of the Northern Nigeria region from 1954-1966. He was the Sardauna of Sokoto and one of the prominent leaders in Northern Nigeria alongside Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, both of whom were prominent in negotiations about the region's place in an independent Nigeria. As leader of the Northern People's Congress, he dominated Nigerian politics throughout the early Nigerian Federation and the First Nigerian Republic.

The first indigenous Governor of the Northern Region of independent Nigeria: Shettima Kashim Ibrahim (1962 - Jan 1966)

Shettima Kashim Ibrahim (10 June 1910 – 25 July 1990) was a Kanuri politician who was head of the Native Administration in Borno and was a minister for Social Services in the 1950s. He held the traditional title of Waziri of the Emirate of Borno after two previous Waziris had been forced to resign as a result of scandals in the Borno local administration. He was a close associate of Ahmadu Bello and was the first Nigerian governor of the Northern Region (January 1962–January 1966).

The first Governor of the Eastern Region of independent Nigeria: Francis Akanu Ibiam (Oct 1960 - Jan 1966)

Akanu Ibiam (1906–1995) was a distinguished medical missionary who was appointed Governor of Eastern Region, Nigeria from December 1960 until January 1966 during the Nigerian First Republic. From 1919 to 1951, he was known as Francis Ibiam, and from 1951 to 1967, Sir Francis Ibiam.

The first Premier of the Eastern Region of independent Nigeria: Michael Iheonukara Okpara (Oct 1960 - Jan 1966)

Michael Iheonukara Okpara, (December 25, 1920-December 17, 1984) was a political leader and Premier of Eastern Nigeria during the First Republic, from 1959 to 1966. Dr. Okpara was, at 39, the nation's youngest Premier. He was a strong advocate of what he called "pragmatic socialism" and believed that agricultural reform was crucial to the ultimate success of Nigeria.

Divorce laws were first instituted in Yorubaland by the colonial administrators ‘in 1918’ and within the context of the divorce system, when a woman had already given birth to children before the divorce, she continued to participate in important family events, provided her children still formed part of the family. The introduction of the European divorce law in 1918 destabilised the structure of the Yoruba marriage system and meant that marriages were reduced to an affair of the individuals involved,contrary to the Ebi system.

The first Nigerian Ambassador to the European Economic Commission (EU): Pius Nwabufor Charles Okigbo

He was the first Nigerian Economic Adviser to the Eastern Nigerian Government, the first Economic Adviser to the Federal Government of Nigeria (1962 – 1967) and the first Nigerian Ambassador to the European Economic Community.

Pius Okigbo (February 6, 1924 — 2000) was an eminent Nigerian economist from Ojoto, Anambra State. Receiving his secondary schooling at Christ the King College, Onitsha, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics through private study, after, he proceeded to Northwestern University, where he earned an MA and PhD in Economics.

As a scholar, he contributed a great deal in propelling into academic discourse, new methods for solving African economic problems. He gained academic acclaim in Nigeria when he published a book on the national accounting standard of Nigeria. He was then appointed as the economic adviser to the governor of the Eastern region of Nigeria.

As an erudite scholar on public finance, he lent his service to public scholarship and policy; he was chairman in a number of Nigerian committees, particularly those dealing with the economic direction of the Nigeria. In 1994, as chairman of a committee to probe the activities of the Central Bank of Nigeria, he released a report critical of the government's role in mismanaging 12.4 billion dollars of oil revenues accrued primarily to two special accounts. The panel's report is popularly known as the Okigbo report.

He was one of the scholars who believed that commodity shocks, deficit financing and government mismanagement are the bane of Nigeria's economic development.

Nigeria’s first OPEC President: Alhaji Chief Shettima Ali Monguno (1972 – 1973). He hosted the 31^st OPEC conference in Lagos (1972), the 32^nd OPEC Conference in Vienna (1973), and the 33^rd OPEC Conference in Vienna (1973).

Shettima Ali Monguno C.F.R. is a Nigerian educationalist and politician, born 1926 in Monguno-Borno state. He attended Monguno primary school, Teacher’s College Bauchi and Katsina, college of arts, science and technology Zaria, Moray House college of education and the University of Edinburgh.

He was M.P. in 1959, education secretary and councilor for education, works and social welfare Borno, local Government 1959-65. Federal minister for Air Force and internal affair 1965-66, federal commissioner for trade and industries 1967-71 minister mines and power, petroleum and energy 1972-75.

Shettima Ali Monguno was also President, OPEC, 1972/1973. he was Presidential Candidate during the Option A4 Elections in the early 1990s in Nigeria.

He is leader of Nigerian delegation to UNCAD II New Delhi in 1968 and member Nigerian delegation to United Nations for over 10 years.

He received keys to the cities of New York, Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Quito, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru.

The first OPEC Conference to be hosted by Nigeria: 31^st OPEC Conference, 1972. Held in Lagos and chaired by Shettima Ali Monguno

The first Nigerian acting President to be overthrown through a Coup: Nwafor Akwaeke Orizu (16 January 1966)

Prince Abyssinia Akweke Nwafor Orizu (1915–1999) was a Nigerian of Igbo origin and Nigeria's second Senate President from November 16, 1960 to January 15, 1966, during the Nigerian First Republic. Orizu was also Acting President of Nigeria from late 1965 until the military coup of January 1966. He was a member of the Nnewi Royal family. His nephew Igwe Kenneth Onyeneke Orizu III is the current Igwe (King) of Nnewi Kingdom. Nwafor Orizu College of Education in Nsugbe, Anambra State is named after him.

The President of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe left the country in late 1965 first for Europe, then on a cruise to the Caribbean. Under the law, Orizu became Acting President during his absence and had all the powers of the President. A coup was launched on 16 January 1966 by a group of disaffected young military officers led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The army quickly suppressed the revolt but assumed power when it was evident that almost all the leadership of the republic had been eliminated, including Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of Northern Region Sir Ahmadu Bello and Premier of the Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Orizu made a nationwide broadcast, after he had brief Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe on the phone the decision of the cabinet, announcing the cabinet's "voluntary" decision to transfer power to the armed forces. Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi then made his own broadcast, accepting the "invitation". On January 17, Major General Ironsi established the Supreme Military Council in Lagos and effectively suspended the constitution.

After the coup, Orizu faded from the political scene but remained active in education. Before the civil war he had set up a high school, the Nigerian Secondary School, in Nnewi. He remained its proprietor until the state government took over all the schools after the defeat of Biafra. After that he continued as a teacher and an educator, publishing several books. Also, between 1974 and 1975, the government of the defunct East Central State, led by Dr. Ukpabi Asika, appointed him the Chairman of the State's Teachers' Service Commission in Enugu.

The first military cantonment to be named after an individual: The military cantonment in Kaduna was named after Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, the first Minister of Defence.

According to Lt. Gen. TY Danjuma (rtd), during the colonial era and shortly after Independence, military barracks in Nigeria used to be named after famous battles or campaigns in which Nigerian troops fought. Examples abound, including An, Letmauk, Dodan, Myohaung, Tamandu, Tego, Arakan, etc.. Specifically the Minister was quoted as saying: "At no time was any barracks named after individuals whether dead or alive. The first departure from this practice was recorded when the military cantonment in Kaduna was named after Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, the first Minister of Defence."

Many Barracks in Nigeria are named after individuals of all kinds, including Muhammadu Ribadu, Wellington Bassey, Zak Maimalari, Yakubu Gowon, John Obienu, Sani Abacha, Aguiyi Ironsi, Ibrahim Babangida, Adaka Boro, Gado Nasko, David Ejoor, Zamani Lekwot etc... Some have even been renamed at least once - like the former Olusegun Obasanjo Barracks in Abuja. Nor are there any clear cut criteria for naming of buildings and streets within Barracks and Cantonments.

The first indigenous Quarter-Master General of the Nigeria Army and the first Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria: Dim Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu (1933 – 2011)

Nigeria’s first Minister of Defence: Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu (1910 - 1965). He is also the first individual to have a military cantonment named after him (the Kaduna military cantonment).

The first Education budget was prepared in 1918. It represented 1% of the Nation's total budget.

Alhaji Adegoke Oduola Akande Adelabu (1915–1958). Born in September 1915 in Ibadan, Adelabu attended Church Missionary Society schools (1925–1931) and Yaba Higher College (1932–1937).

Adelabu was the first vice president of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1955. He served as an elected member of the Western House of Assembly in 1956 as an opposition leader. He died in March 1958 in a car accident. His supporters suspected foul play.

The first civilian Governor of Cross River State: Dr. Clement N. Isong from 1979 to 1983. Having contributed to the growth of Nigeria, Dr. Isong was honoured with Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFR) in 1982. He died on 29th May, 2000. He was the second Nigerian to be Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria.

He attended University College, Ibadan, Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, USA and Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Science where he obtained Ph.D. in Economics.

The first Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN): Sir. Roy Pentelow Ray Fenton (24 July 1958 – 24 July 1963), an adviser to the Bank of England. The CBN was formally opened on 1 July 1959.

The first and the only Expatriate Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria: Mr. Graham William Keep from (27 January 1959 to 26 January 1962).

Nigeria’s first indigenous Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor: Alhaji Aliyu Mai-Bornu Appointed 25 July1963- 22 June 1967, he took over from the first Governor, a British, Sir. Roy Pentelow Ray Fenton (24 July 1958 – 24 July 1963).

The first Igbo-man to become the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor: Dr. Clement Nyong Isong (15 August 1972 - Retired 24 September 1975)

The first Yoruba-man to become the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor: Mr. Olatunde Olabode Vincent (28 June 1977 - Retired 28 June 1982)

Sir Chief Adesoji Tadeniawo Aderemi (1889–1980). Born in November 1889 in Ile-Ife, Aderemi attended the Church Missionary School there. After completing his studies, he worked as a civil servant for the Railway Department from 1909 to 1921. He then worked as a produce merchant from 1921 to 1930. In August 1930, he became the ooni (chief) of Ile-Ife. His political activities increased in the early 1950s when he served as president of the Western House of Chiefs in 1954 and as the first Nigerian governor of the Western Region from July 1960 to December 1962. He collected an array of honors, including the honorary titles of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Companion of St. Michael and St. George. He died in July 1980.

Ladapo Samuel Ademola II (1872-1962. He contributed to the political transformation of Nigeria from colony to country through his involvement in the judicial system. As a child, he studied as St. Georgory’s Grammar School and King’s College in Lagos. Between 1928 and 1931 he studied at Cambridge University for his bachelor’s degree. In 1934, he was called to the bar in London. He returned to Nigeria one year later and worked in the colonial attorney-general’s office. Ademola also worked as the assistant secretary of the colonial secretariat in Enugu (1935–1936). , He became the first Nigerian to serve as a judge. He worked as chief justice for the Western Region (1953) and then for the entire country (1955). In 1957, he received the honorary title Knight Commander of the British Empire, and in 1963 became one of Queen Elizabeth’s II privy councillors. He also acted as president of the Nigerian Red Cross International and the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity. He was a founder of several social clubs, including the Yoruba Club, Metropolitan Club, and Island Club.

Muhammadu Attahiru Ii (?–1915). Great-grandson of Usman dan Fodio and son of Ali Babba bin Bello, Attahiru II was the first sultan of Sokoto under British colonial rule. He held the position from 1903 to 1915. During his reign, Sokoto assisted the British colonial government in squashing a Mahdist rebellion in Satiru in 1906. Sokoto forces, led by Mallam Isa, marched to Satiru with 300 horse-men and foot soldiers and joined forces with the (Royal) West African Frontier Force. In general, Attahiru II faced the difficult challenge of retaining his subjects’ respect as well as British approval.

Alhaji Abdullahi Bayero (1881–1953). Bayero was born in Kano, the son of Muhammadu Abbas, the emir of Kano from 1903 to 1919. Bayero served as a district head in Bichi, located in Kano State. He was the tenth emir of Kano, from 1926 until his death in December 1953. As the emir, he made development a high priority for Kano and was successful. In 1934, he visited King George V in England. He was the first emir of Kano to travel to Mecca by car during his hajj (pilgrimage). Bayero encouraged Muslim students in northern Nigeria to attend Western-style schools. In 1964, Ahmadu Bello College changed its name to Bayero University to honor him.

Nigeria has had six constitutions: the Clifford (1922), Richards (1946), Macpherson (1951), Lyttlelton (1954), 1979 Constitution, and 1999 Constitution. For each of the constitutions, formal conferences were held in London (during the colonial period) and Lagos (after 1960). The first four constitutions were named after the colonial governor serving at the time. The first two were drafted by the British colonial government and applied to colonial Nigeria without consultation. The Macpherson and Lyttlelton Constitutions included some level of negotiation and review by appointed Nigerians.

The first secretary for the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan: Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki (1923– ). Born in December 1923 in Dogondaji, in Sokoto State, Dasuki studied at a Koranic school in Dogondaji (1928–1930) and at Sokoto Elementary and Middle Schools (1931–1935), Kaduna College (present-day Barewa College) in Zaria (1940–1944), and Oxford University in England (1955–1956).

He held numerous positions, including deputy secretary of the Northern Nigeria Executive Council (1957–1958), first secretary for the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan (1960–1961), permanent secretary of the Northern Nigeria Ministry of Local Government (1962–1965), and member of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (1965–1968). He was also director of the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company (1966–1969), United Arewa Stores (1969), Gusau Oil Mills (1969), and Zamfara Textile Industries (1971). During the 1970s, he was a member of the Governing Council for the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, chairman of the Federal Government Commission on Local Government Service Reforms, and a member of the Constituent Assembly (1977–1978).

Dasuki was a cofounder of the National Party of Nigeria in 1978. He was also the chairman (and major shareholder) of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). He was the sultan of Sokoto, through a controversial turn of events, from November 1988 to April 1996. A dispute over the position of sultan emerged in 1986 involving the previous sultan’s son, Sultan Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido. In general, the Nigerian government, military or civilian, is not involved in selection of a new sultan, but in 1988 General Ibrahim Babangida installed Dasuki as the new sultan. The response was widespread violence, targeting places such as Dasuki’s BCCI in Sokoto. Dasuki was a longtime business associate of Babangida. In 1991, Dasuki and Babangida were exposed for fraudulent investments. In 1996, Dasuki was deposed by General Sani Abacha.

Between 1996 and 1998, Dasuki lived in seclusion in the town of Jalingo and rarely appeared in public. He received the honorary titles Commander of the Order of the Niger (1965), baraden (chief) of Sokoto (1973), and sultan of Sokoto (1988–1996).

Nigeria’s first major loan to service its debt, for $1 billion, was taken in 1978. Prior to this, Nigeria received government-to-government loans in addition to multilateral loans (loans from international financial institutions such as the World Bank). Nigeria’s total outstanding debt was an estimated $488.6 million in 1970.

By 1985, Nigeria was devoting over 33 percent of its export earnings to paying accrued debt. Nigeria’s debt became a serious problem as a result of the growing import–export gap. Most experts at the time agreed that the way to handle the large debt was to restructure Nigeria’s economy. Thus, Nigeria underwent a structural adjustment program designed and recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) starting in the mid-1980s.

Nigeria’s first post independence development plan (1962–1968) focused on economic growth.

The first African to be promoted to the rank of Inspector General of Police: Inspector General Louis Orola Edet (1913–1979). Edet was born in August 1913 in Calabar. After completing his primary and secondary education in Bonny and Calabar, he joined the police force. During World War II, he worked for the Immigration Department. After serving as a member of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Central Africa, Edet became police commissioner in Abuja. In 1964, he was promoted to the rank of inspector general, making him the first African to hold the title. He retired from the police force in 1966 after the first military coup d’état. He later worked for the Nigerian High Commission in London and the government of South-Eastern State after the civil war. He received the honorary titles Commander of the Order of the British Empire and member of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Edet died in January 1979.

The open ballot system, used sometimes until the mid-1990s, did not prevent corrupt activities. This system allowed people to vote in public by acclamation, which required all voters to participate within a narrow time frame. It was used first in 1951 in the Western Region. But the open ballot system revealed a voter’s decision and exposed him or her to coercion. It was abandoned and replaced by the secret ballot system. The secret ballot system was used during the First and Second Republics. It lent itself to corruption because people could buy ballots and stuff election boxes behind closed doors. In 1993, Nigeria started using the open secret ballot system, which allows voters to mark their choice secretly and deposit the ballot in the election box in a public space.

The first African to become an officer in the British Army of the Rhine: Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi (1922–1966). Fajuyi was born in June 1922 in Ado-Ekiti, in Ondo State. He joined the army in 1943. In 1954, he was the first African to become an officer in the British Army of the Rhine. For his military contributions during World War II, the British government awarded him a medal of honor. Like many of his peers in the army, he served as a member of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Central Africa in the early 1960s. During the military coup d’état of 1966, he was serving as the commanding officer of the Abeokuta Garrison. That same year,

Fajuyi was appointed military governor of the Western Region (January 1966–July 1966). The renowned poet Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka portrays Fajuyi as a martyr in his poem “For Fajuyi,” because Fajuyi sacrificed his life to refute the idea that the Western Region colluded with the Northern Region. He died, along with Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, in July 1966.

House Of Chiefs: A House of Chiefs was first set up in the Northern Region by the Richards Constitution in 1946. The Western Region assembled a House of Chiefs through the Macpherson Constitution of 1952. The Eastern Region acquired one in 1959. The purpose of the regional houses of chiefs was to provide an opportunity for direct involvement by traditional rulers and leaders. These houses worked in tandem with the regional House of Assembly. A House of Chiefs could recommend a legislative bill be ratified by the House of Assembly. The system was dismantled after the 1966 coup d’état.

Fredrick Lugard first promoted indirect rule as a unique British strategy in the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria before applying it to the rest of the colony. In southern Nigeria, the British tried to implement indirect rule between 1914 and 1916.

Eyo Ita (1902–1972). Born in Calabar, Ita studied at the Hope Waddell Training Institute and Columbia University, starting in 1931, where he studied education and religion. He taught at the Baptist Academy in Lagos. In 1933, he returned to Nigeria and joined the Nigerian Youth Movement. Ita published several works that expressed his views on the independence struggle and the role of youth in the West African People’s Institute. He refused to allow an expatriate to work as his private secretary. He was an active member of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) and served as its first vice president in 1948. He was a member of the Eastern Nigeria House of Assembly (1951) and minister of national resources for the Eastern Region. In 1953, after being ejected from the NCNC, he formed the National Independence Party. During the civil war, Ita sided with the secessionist Republic of Biafra. He died in 1972.

Nigeria’s first high commissioner to Great Britain: Alhaji Abdul Maliki (1914–1969). As a young man, Maliki studied at Okene Elementary School (1923–1927), Bida Primary School (1927–1929), and Katsina Training College (1929–1934). He worked as a teacher, clerk, and public works supervisor between 1935 and 1939. In 1950, he went to England and attended a local government training program. After his return, he joined the Northern People’s Congress political party. He served as a member of the Northern Regional House of Assembly. Three years later, he was appointed Northern Region Commissioner to Great Britain. In 1960, he became Nigeria’s first high commissioner to Great Britain. Six years later, he became Nigeria’s ambassador to France. Maliki died in 1969.

The first Nigerian chief justice in eastern Nigeria: Sir Louis Nwachukwu Mbanefo (1911–1977). Born in May 1911 in Onitsha, in Anambra State, Mbanefo completed his primary school education in Onitsha. He then studied at King’s College in Lagos, University of London, and King’s College in Cambridge, where he completed degrees in history and law in the mid-1930s. In Nigeria, he had a private legal practice. He served as a member of the Onitsha Town Council in 1939. He was a member of the Eastern House of Assembly (1950–1952) and the Legislative Council. He was the first Nigerian chief justice in eastern Nigeria. In 1952, he served as a judge of the Supreme Court and in 1956 as judge of the High Court of eastern Nigeria. He also served on the Federal Supreme Court of Appeal in Lagos (1958) and the International Court of Justice at The Hague (1961). Mbanefo chaired a commission on the salaries of Eastern and Northern Region civil service workers in 1960. During the civil war, he supported the secessionist Republic of Biafra. He was one of the founders of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. Mbanefo died in March 1977.

The first Nigerian chief representative to the United Nations (1959–1960): Chief Matthew Taiwo Mbu. Born November 1929 in Ogoja, in Cross River State, as a young man, Mbu studied at St. Patrick’s in Ogoja as well as at the Metropolitan College of Law in England. He was called to the bar in 1960. Back in Nigeria, he worked as a produce manager for John Holt and Company from 1944 to 1952. He also worked as the director of the Eastern Regional Production Development Board from 1952 to 1954. In the political arena, he was president of the Ogoja Divisional Council (1951–1954), a member of the Eastern House of Assembly (1952–1954), and minister of labour (1954–1955). In 1955, became minister of trade and industry. From 1960 to 1966, he was a member of the Parliament of Ogoja. Mbu was the first Nigerian chief representative to the United Nations (1959–1960). During the mid-1960s, he was heavily involved in the Organization of African Unity (present-day African Union). From 1961 to 1965, he was the minister of naval defense. Just prior to the civil war, he was the chairman of the Eastern Nigerian Public Commission. From 1977 to 1978, he served as a member of the Constituent Assembly. In the 1980s, he was chairman and/or director of several private companies operating in Nigeria. In 1993, he was the secretary for external affairs of the short-lived Interim National Government of Nigeria. He was also the ambassador to Germany in the late 1990s. Mbu was an active member of several political parties, including the National Council of Nigerian Citizens and the Nigerian People’s Party. He earned the honorary titles Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (1996) and otu agrinya (chief) of Bokiland. Mbu received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ibadan in 1988.

The first Nigerian ambassador to the European Economic Community: Pius Nwabufo Charles Okigbo (1924–2000). Born in February 1924 in Ojoto, in Anambra State. Okigbo completed his primary and secondary education at various schools in Anambra State. He also studied at Yaba Higher College in Lagos (1941–1942), University of London (1944–1948 and 1982), Northwestern University (1952–1954, 1955–1957), and Oxford University (1954–1955, 1957–1958). He was an economic adviser for the Eastern Region (1960–1962), Federal Republic of Nigeria (1962–1967), and Republic of Biafra (1967–1970). He served on the board of the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (1963–1966). During the civil war, he served as economic adviser to Chief Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. In the 1970s and 1980s, Okigbo was a chairman or member of several government committees assigned to reviewing the constitution, the national revenue allocation scheme, and solid minerals development. For example, he headed Okigbo Commission in 1979. He was also involved in pan-African cooperation committees, panels, and advisory boards. In addition, Okigbo held the distinction of being the first Nigerian ambassador to the European Economic Community. He was the older brother of the Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo. He received the honorary title Commander of the Order of the Niger (1977) and honorary degrees from several universities in Nigeria between 1966 and 1997.

The Native Treasuries were established first in the North in 1911 and then across Nigeria by 1914 to create a repository for taxation that was to be used by chiefs and their administration in the Native Authority.

Queen Elizabeth II’s first visit to Nigeria: 28 January – 16 February 1956

Queen Elizabeth II’s first post-independence visit to Nigeria: 3 – 6 December 2003

The first and only Nigerian Prime Minister to visit the United States of America: Late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first Nigerian Prime Minister. He became the first African Leader to address a joint session of the Congress.

The first sitting president of Nigeria to visit Israel: Goodluck Jonathan (October 2013)

Though he did visit previously as vice president, Goodluck Jonathan led a delegation of eight governors, seven ministers, and three members of the National Assembly and several church leaders.

The first government-approved, national trade union: Trade Union Congress Of Nigeria (TUCN). TUCN is one of the key national trade unions. In 1942, the Federated Trade Union was formed to serve as a central union, representing a range of industrial workers. A year later, its name was changed to the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria. It was the first government-approved, national trade union. By the late 1940s, the congress faced difficulties and broke up into several trade unions. TUCN was reformed in January 1959 by the merging of the All-Nigeria Trade Union Federation and the National Council of Trade Unions of Nigeria. In 1962, after a brief hiatus, the TUCN and the Nigerian Trade Union Congress were folded into the United Labour Congress.

The first chairman of the Lagos Town Council: Chief Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams (1920–2005). Williams was born in December 1920 in Lagos into a family of lawyers as a young man Williams attended the Methodist Olowogbowo Primary School and the Church Missionary Society Grammar School in Lafia. He studied at Selwyn College in England, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1942. He also studied as a barrister-at-law and was called to the bar in 1954, at which time he returned to Nigeria and practiced law for several years. In 1958, Williams was appointed Queen’s Counsel. He served as the first chairman of the Lagos Town Council and secretary to the Nigerian Youth Movement. He was also a member of the Action Group. In 1954, he was the minister of local government and chieftaincy affairs. He was also the first minister of justice and attorney general in the Western Region. From 1959 to 1968, Williams served as president of the Nigerian Bar Association. In 1960, he acted as deputy premier of the Western Region. In 1975, he assumed the position of Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He assisted in the drafting of the 1979 constitution. He challenged in court General Sani Abacha’s suppression of the Guardian newspaper. Williams was hailed by many as one of Nigeria’s most successful and senior practicing lawyers. He acquired the affectionate nickname, “’Timi the Law.” He received the honorary titles Commander of the Order of the Niger in 1965 as well as Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1978. Williams died in Lagos in March 2005.

World Bank (WB). Since its creation in 1944, the WB has provided financial and technical assistance to Nigeria in a variety of ways. It has funded numerous projects involving Nigeria’s agricultural sector since the 1950s. After completing an economic survey in 1954, the WB recommended the expansion of infrastructure, accumulation of financial reserves, and establishment of a central bank over a five-year period. Nigeria received its first loan of $28 million for the construction of a railroad from Bauchi to Borno in 1958. Independent Nigeria also took out a loan of $13 million for the modernization of the Lagos port complex in 1962. The WB helped finance the establishment of an oil palm plantation and four oil palm mills in 1978. In more recent years, the WB has funded development programs that targeted farming in fadama (“wetlands” in the Hausa language) areas in northern Nigeria. It has also contributed to water improvement projects such as the National Water Rehabilitation Project, launched in 2006.

The first Executive civilian Governor of Benue State: Late Mr. Aper Aku

The first civilian governor of Ondo State: Late Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin

The first democratically elected Governor of Nasarawa State: Dr. Abdullahi Adamu

Henry Rawlingson Carr: Carr was the first student of Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone to obtain an honours degree and the first African resident commissioner of the colony of Lagos. Carr was the son of a Sierra Leonean emigrant of Yoruba extraction. He was born on August 15, 1863 in Lagos. He attended St. Paul’s School, Breadfruit and Olowogbowo Wesleyan Elementary School in Lagos. He went to Sierra Leone for his secondary education which he received at the newly opened Wesleyan Boys’ High School, Freetown.

In 1877, Carr entered Fourah Bay College and obtained a bachelor of arts degree in Mathematics and Physics in 1882. He left for Britain and enrolled at Lincoln’s Inn, St Mark’s College in Chelsea and the Royal College of Science in South Kensington, London.

After 12 years of academic pursuit abroad, Carr returned to Nigeria in June 1885 and was appointed senior assistant master at the Church Missionary Society, CMS, Grammar School, Lagos. He joined the civil service in 1889 as chief clerk and sub-inspector of schools for Lagos. The following year, he became the assistant colonial secretary for native affairs.

Carr returned to the department of education as provincial inspector, then a chief inspector of schools in Southern Nigeria and commissioner (Resident) of the colony of Lagos. He retired on August 1, 1924 at the age of 61.

Throughout his career, the main interest of Carr was education. Because he believed that education was a necessity for the development of the individual and the nation, Carr advocated that it should be a prominent feature in government programmes. His published works include Key to Locks’s Trigonometry, and The General Reports of Education in Lagos. In 1906, Carr received master’s of arts and bachelor of civil law degrees from Durham University and was honoured with companion of the Imperial Service in 1920 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He died on March 6, 1945.

Nigeria’s Maiden first lady: Flora Ogbenyeanu Ogoegbunam Azikiwe. Nnamdi Azikiwe married Flora Ogboegbunam in 1936 when he was 32 years. Between them, they had one daughter and three sons. Chukwuma, his first son, is a diplomat, while Chukwuemeka is a businessman. She died August 1983.

The first Nigerian Head of State to get Married in office: General Yakubu Gowon (19 April 1969). He was Nigeria’s youngest Head of State and he ruled Nigeria from 1 August 1966 to 29 July 1975. He married Miss Victoria Zakari, a graduate nurse of the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital, in an event condemned as flamboyant and extravagant during Nigeria’s ongoing civil war (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970).

The first Nigerian Head of State to have Children while in office: General Yakubu Gowon. He and his wife, Victoria had their first child, Ibrahim Bala and their second child, Saratu Kankemwa Tani between 1970 and 1972, while in office.

The first child born to a reining Nigerian Head of State: Ibrahim Bala Gowon. Born to Yakubu and Victoria Gowon in 1970.

The first Executive Governor of Plateau State (01 October 1979), Co-founder and first National Secretary of the Nigerian Legal Aid Association: Chief (Dr.) Solomon Daushep Lar. Lar was born in Pongaa, Langtang, Plateau State in April 1933. His father was a farmer and his mother a pottery maker. He studied at the Sudan United Mission Primary School in Langtang, and then at the Gindiri Teachers College where he qualified to teach at the Primary School, Langtang. After two years he returned to Gindiri for the Senior Teachers Training Programme, earned his Higher Elementary Certificate and started to teach at the Senior Primary School level.

Lar won the governorship election in Plateau State as the first Executive Governor on 1 October 1979. In the transition to the Nigerian Fourth Republic Lar conducted the first national convention of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Jos where Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo defeated Ekwueme to fly the party’s presidential ticket in the 1999 election. He became the first National Chairman of People's Democratic Party (PDP) in 1998 after Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme stepped down in consideration of his presidential aspiration on the platform of the party. Lar held this position until 2002 when he handed over to Chief Barnabas Gemade, who defeated Chief Sunday Awoniyi to emerge the first elected national chairman of the PDP.

In February 2004 he resigned as chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, handing over to Chief Tony Anenih at a caucus in Abuja. He remained a power in the PDP until 2005, when he supported Vice President Atiku Abubakar in his falling out with President Olusegun Obasanjo, and later supported Atiku's bid for the Presidency in 2007. In April 2006, Lar also welcomed the decision of former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida to compete for President in the 2007 elections, saying that in a democracy anyone was entitled to run. He died 9 October 2013.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was founded on August 31, 1998.

Nigeria's first Vice President: Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme. He created the first indigenous architectural firm in Nigeria, Ekwueme Associates, Architects and Town Planners, which flourished with 16 offices spread all over Nigeria and was wound up in preparation for Dr Ekwueme assuming office as the first executive Vice President of Nigeria.

He started primary school at the St John's Anglican Central School, at Ekwulobia, then he proceeded to King's College, Lagos As an awardee of the Fulbright Scholarship in the United States America (being one of the first Nigerians to gain the award), Alex attended the University of Washington where he earned Bachelors degree in architecture and city planning. He obtained his Masters degree in urban planning. Dr Ekwueme also earned degrees in sociology, history, philosophy and law from the University of London. He later proceeded to obtain a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Strathclyde, before gaining the BL (Honours) degree from the Nigerian Law School.

His famous proposals at the NCC for a just and equitable power sharing in Nigeria based on the six geopolitical zones have now come to be accepted as necessary for maintaining a stable Nigerian polity. Dr Ekwueme mobilized the group of 34 eminent Nigerians who risked their lives to stand up against the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha during the era of military rule in Nigeria. He was the founding Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as the first pro tem national chairman of the PDP and held that position for about three months following which he stepped down in consideration of his presidential aspiration on the platform of the party and was the first Chairman of the party's Board of Trustees.

The first Indian Prime Minister to make a state visit to Nigeria:Jawaharlal Nehru (1962).

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh became the first Indian leader to visit Nigeria in 45 years and address a joint session of the Parliament of Nigeria (Oct 2007).

The first British Prime Minister to visit Nigeria Post-Independence: Sir Alec Douglas-Home (20 -21 March 1964)

The first British Female Prime Minister to visit Nigeria: Margaret Hilda Thatcher (7 January 1988). She made a second brief visit to Nigeria in 28 March 1989.

The first sitting Prime Minister to visit Nigeria (Pre-Independence): Harold Macmillan (January 1960) during his six weeks African Commonwealth States tour that started on 5 January 1960. The tour climaxed with his “wind of change” revolutionary speech in Cape Town at the South African Parliament on 3 February 1960 (This was the second time he delivered the speech, the first being in Accra, Ghana). Macmillan visited Ghana, Nigeria, Rhodesia & Nyasaland and then South Africa.

The South African Prime Minister, Henrik Verwoerd, responded by saying "…to do justice to all, does not only mean being just to the black man of Africa, but also to be just to the white man of Africa". He continued by saying that it was white men who brought civilisation to Africa, and that South Africa was bare [of people] when the first Europeans arrived. Verwoerd's response was met with applause from the members of South Africa's Parliament.

The first official visit by a French Prime Minister to Nigeria since her independence: Mr François Fillon (May 22 – 23, 2009)

The first African country to sign a strategic partnership with China: Nigeria (16 January 2006). During his visit to China in 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo reached consensus with President Hu Jintao on establishing a strategic partnership of mutual political trust, mutual economic benefits and mutual assistance in international affairs. The memorandum of understanding on establishing the strategic partnership between both countries and the agreement on economic and technological cooperation between the two governments was signed on the evening of January 16, 2006, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing held talks with Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji in Abuja.

In addition, in April 2008 it was reported that China’s export credit agency Sinosure had agreed to guarantee up to $50 billion worth of Chinese investment in Nigeria. The offer was made during Yar’Adua’s first state visit to China.

The Nigerian–Chinese Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1994, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) won a $529 million contract to rehabilitate the Nigerian railway system in 1995 (with Abacha’s children allegedly in on the deal27), and the former premier of China’s State Council, Li Ping, visited Nigeria in 1997, signing protocols relating to power generation, steel and oil.

Nigeria is the first African country to include Chinese currency RMB into its foreign exchange reserves and the first destination country of China's export of whole communication satellites to Africa and the world at large.

Nigeria is the first African country to set up cultural centres in China and Chinese Cultural Center in Nigeria had also taken root since Chairman Zhang Dejing of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress visited Nigeria in 2002.

The China Lagos Industrial and Commercial Federation was established in 2003 to help Chinese businesses navigate Legal, Social and Security matters and to encourage a climate favourable for further expansion. The organisation also publishes the ‘West Africa United Business Weekly’, the first Chinese Language newspaper to circulate in the region.

Nigeria's first parliamentary elections to the Legislative Council were held: September 1923

The first political party in Nigeria: People’s Union (1908). The party was formed by Dr. Orisadipe Obasa and Dr. John Randle during the water-rate agitation as opposition to the water-rate levy, with Randle as president and Obasa as secretary. Randle died in 1928 and Obasa on 15 April 1940 at his residence in Lagos, the last of the eight Nigerians who qualified in medicine in the nineteenth century.

In December 1893, Captain Robert Lister Bower assumed duties in Ibadan as the first Resident and Travelling Commissioner in the hinterland of Yoruba land in south-western Nigeria. Among his duties is to enforce the treaties and to consolidate the British authority in the area.