Nigeria — A Narrative History of Post-Colonial Leaders (1960–2026)

Africa's giant, still learning to walk on its own feet.

At midnight on 30 September 1960, at the Race Course in Lagos, the Union Jack came down and the green-white-green flag went up. Nigeria began its life as the largest nation in Africa, a federation of three regions that were stronger than its centre. Its first prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, said the country had "awaited it with increasing impatience". What followed was sixty-six years of trying to prove an old remark wrong, that Nigeria was "a mere geographical expression": two coups in 1966, a civil war that killed perhaps a million people, twenty-nine years of military rule, the annulment of the freest election in the country's history, and, in 2015, a sitting president who lost and telephoned the man who had beaten him.

Nigeria: A Narrative History of Post-Colonial Leaders tells that story as a story — chronological, human and sourced. Seven acts, named as the book names them: The Fragile Federation, One Nigeria, Soldiers into Civilians, The Long Night of the Generals, The General Returns, Rule of Law, Hour of Fear, and Change and Renewed Hope — to 12 September 2026, when the electoral commission published the final list of eighteen candidates for the presidential election of 16 January 2027.

Inside:

• The deep past — the Nok terracottas, the bronzes of Igbo-Ukwu, Ife and Benin, Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa cities and the Sokoto Caliphate, the slave trade from the Bights of Benin and Biafra, the sack of Benin in 1897, Lugard's amalgamation of 1914, the Women's War of 1929 and the road to the First of October
• The national emblem — the red eagle on a black shield crossed by the white Y of the Niger and the Benue, the two white horses, the motto "Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress", a flag designed by a 23-year-old student in London, and an old anthem brought back in 2024
• Seven illustrated acts, from midnight at the Race Course to the candidate list of September 2026 — the majors' coup of January 1966, Biafra and Gowon's reconciliation, Murtala's two hundred days and Obasanjo's handover of 1979, the annulment of June 12 and the hanging of the Ogoni Nine, debt relief and the defeat of the third term, the Niger Delta amnesty, Boko Haram and Chibok, Jonathan's telephone call of 2015, EndSARS, and Tinubu's end of the fuel subsidy
• The country beneath the presidents — oil and the Delta, many peoples and one passport, mosque and church, emirs and obas, Lagos, Achebe, Soyinka and the storytellers, Nollywood and Afrobeats, the Super Eagles, and the Benin Bronzes coming home
• Verified quotes from Nigeria's leaders, and 53 key-fact cards on the pages that carry no picture or quote
• A chronology, a table of Nigeria's fifteen leaders (seventeen rows: Obasanjo and Buhari each ruled twice, first as soldiers, then as elected presidents), 78 source notes and a reader's guide of 126 entries — books, scholarly articles, reports and journalism, and primary sources
• Lessons in Leadership — what the country's best and worst moments teach those who lead, and an epilogue on the latest official data to September 2026 (National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Nigeria, Debt Management Office, IMF)
• The recurring patterns — the regional arithmetic, the oil pendulum, the soldier's promise, the disputed count, the subsidy trap, insurgency from the margins, the resilient society, and the concession

A clear, sourced introduction for anyone who wants to understand Nigeria, West Africa, and how the largest democracy in Africa learned that a president who loses goes home.

What you get: the book in PDF and EPUB in one ZIP file, DRM-free, instant download. Future updates are included with your purchase.