Culture of Nigeria

Nigeria is famous for its English language literature. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is an important book in African literature.[3] With over eight million copies sold worldwide, it has been translated into 50 languages, making Achebe the most translated African writer of all time.[4][5]

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka described the work as "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him."[6] Nigeria has other notable writers of English language literature. These include Femi Osofisan who first published a novel Kolera Kolej was in 1975; Ben Okri whose first work, The Famished Road was published in 1991 and Buchi Emecheta who wrote stories drawn from her personal experiences of gender inequity that promote viewing women through a single prism of the ability to marry and have children. Helon Habila, Sefi Atta , Flora Nwapa, Iquo DianaAbasi Eke,[7] Zaynab Alkali and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie among others are notable Nigerian authors whose works are read widely within and outside the country.[8]

Apart from the speakers of standard English, a large portion of the population, roughly a third, speaks Nigerian pidgin, which has a primarily English lexicon. It has become a common lingua franca as a result. Pidgin English is a creolized form of the language. For instance, "How you dey" means "How are you". The Palm Wine Drinkard, a popular novel by Amos Tutuola, was written in it.

Since the 1990s the Nigerian movie industry, sometimes called "Nollywood", has emerged as a fast-growing cultural force all over Africa. Because of the movies, western influences such as music, casual dressing and methods of speaking are to be found all across Nigeria, even in the highly conservative north of the country.[9]

Supporters of English football clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea often segregate beyond the traditional tribal and even religious divide to share their common cause in Premier League teams. The Nigerian national football team, nicknamed the "Super Eagles", is the national team of Nigeria, run by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). According to the FIFA World Rankings, Nigeria ranks 31st and holds the second-highest place among the African nations behind Senegal (20th). The highest position Nigeria ever reached on the ranking was 5th, in April 1994.

Nigerian food offers a rich blend of traditionally African carbohydrates such as yam and cassava as well as the vegetable soups with which they are often served. Maize is another crop that is commonly grown in Nigeria.[10] Praised by Nigerians for the strength it gives, garri is "the number one staple carbohydrate food item in Nigeria"[11] a powdered cassava grain that can be readily eaten as a meal and is quite inexpensive. Yams are frequently fried either fried in oil or pounded to make a mashed potato-like yam pottage. Nigerian beans, quite different from green peas, are widely popular. Meat is also popular and Nigerian suya—a barbecue-like roasted meat—is a well-known delicacy. Bush meat, meat from wild game like antelope and giraffes, is also popular. Fermented palm products make a traditional liquor, palm wine, and also fermented cassava. Nigerian foods are spicy, mostly in the western and southern part of the country, even more so than in Indian cuisine. Some more examples of their traditional dishes are eba, pounded yam, iyan, fufu and soups like okra, ogbono and egusi. Fufu is so emblematic of Nigeria that it figures in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, for example. Achebe's magnum opus is the most widely read book in modern African literature.[12]

The music of Nigeria includes many kinds of folk and popular music, some of which are known worldwide. The singer and social activist Fela Kuti was instrumental in Nigeria's musical development.

Traditional musicians use a number of diverse instruments, such as Gongon drums. The kora and the kakaki are also important.

Other traditional cultural expressions are found in the various masquerades of Nigeria, such as the Eyo masquerades, the Ekpe and Ekpo Masquerades of the Efik/Ibibio/Annang/Igbo peoples of coastal southeastern Nigeria, and the Northern Edo Masquerades. The most popular Yoruba manifestations of this custom are the Gelede masquerades.

A very important source of information on modern Nigerian art is the Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art operated by the Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos.

In addition, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, and Naija Invest Gateway, provide real-time information on the Nigerian business culture.

Women wear long flowing robes and headscarves made from local markets who dye and weave the fabric locally. Southern Nigerian women choose to wear western-style clothing. People in urban regions of Nigeria dress in western style, the youth mainly wearing jeans and T-shirts. Other Nigerian men and women typically wear a traditional style called Buba. For men the loose-fitting shirt goes down to halfway down the thigh. For women, the loose-fitting blouse goes down a little below the waist. Other clothing gear includes a gele, which is the woman's headgear. For men their traditional cap is called fila.

Historically, Nigerian fashion incorporated many different types of fabrics. Cotton has been used for over 500 years for fabric-making in Nigeria. Silk (called tsamiya in Hausa, sanyan in Yoruba, akpa-obubu in Igbo, and sapar ubele in Edo) is also used.[13] Perhaps the most popular fabric used in Nigerian fashion is Dutch wax print, produced in the Netherlands. The import market for this fabric is dominated by the Dutch company Vlisco,[14] which has been selling its Dutch wax print fabric to Nigerians since the late 1800s, when the fabric was sold along the company's oceanic trading route to Indonesia. Since then, Nigerian and African patterns, color schemes, and motifs have been incorporated into Vlisco's designs to become a staple of the brand.[15]

Nigeria has over 250 ethnic groups[16] and as a result, a wide variety of traditional clothing styles. In the Yoruba tradition, women wear an iro (wrapper), buba (loose shirt) and gele (head-wrap).[17] The men wear buba (long shirt), sokoto (baggy trousers), agbada (flowing robe with wide sleeves) and fila (a hat).[18] In the Igbo tradition, the men's cultural attire is Isiagu (a patterned shirt), which is worn with trousers and the traditional Igbo men's hat called Okpu Agwu. The women wear a puffed sleeved blouse, two wrappers and a headwrap.[19] Hausa men wear barbarigas or kaftans (long flowing gowns) with tall decorated hats. The women wear wrappers and shirts and cover their heads with hijabs (veils).[20]

• Architecture of Nigeria
• Music of Nigeria
• Nok culture
• Festivals in Nigeria
• List of museums in Nigeria

• Ross, Will. "Nigeria's thriving art and music scene." (Archive) BBC. 20 November 2013.

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