Nigeria turns 66 today and true to its age, it has certainly come a long way. The nation has experienced varying turn of events that have ultimately led to its current state.
If you are an enthusiast who wants to read about Nigeria and other major historical events that have happened before or after her independence, here are 12 books on the different eras that you should certainly have on your list:
PRE-COLONIAL NIGERIA & THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart offers a portrait of Igbo society before and during the arrival of British colonialism, showing a community with its own systems of governance, religion, justice, family, and social order. Through Okonkwo’s story, the novel also examines how colonialism disrupts existing structures and changes how people understand themselves and their communities. It presents Nigeria’s history not as beginning with colonial rule, but as a complex society with histories and institutions that existed long before it.
COLONIAL NIGERIA
2. Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
In Ake: The Years of Childhood, Wole Soyinka remembers growing up in colonial-era Abeokuta, offering an intimate view of Nigerian life through family, school, religion, community, and childhood. The memoir shows how colonial institutions existed alongside deeply rooted Yoruba traditions and local ways of life. Nigeria emerges as a place shaped by the meeting, and sometimes tension, between inherited culture and colonial modernity.
3. What Britain Did to Nigeria by Max Siollun
What Britain Did to Nigeria examines the political and economic structures Britain established during colonial rule and the consequences they had for the country that eventually became Nigeria. Siollun explores how British policies, administrative decisions, regional divisions, and economic interests shaped the Nigerian state. The book is particularly useful for understanding how some of the institutions and tensions inherited at independence were produced during colonial rule.
4. A History of Nigeria by Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton
A History of Nigeria provides a broad account of the country’s development, moving across its diverse societies, kingdoms, colonial experience, independence, political crises, military rule, and later democratic periods. Rather than presenting Nigeria as a single, uniform story, the book emphasises the different peoples, regions, and historical forces that have shaped the country. It provides the wider historical framework for understanding many of the experiences explored more intimately in the other books on this list.
INDEPENDENCE & THE FIRST REPUBLIC
5. Awo by Obafemi Awolowo
In Awo, Obafemi Awolowo recounts his political life and articulates his ideas about Nigeria, development, education, federalism, and nation-building. The book offers a view of the country’s transition toward independence from the perspective of one of its major political figures. It also reveals the competing visions of what Nigeria should become, particularly around regional development, political organisation, and the responsibilities of government.
CIVIL WAR & BIAFRA
6. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Half of a Yellow Sun brings the Nigerian Civil War into the lives of ordinary people, following characters whose relationships and ambitions are transformed by the political crisis and violence surrounding Biafra. Through their experiences, the novel explores ethnicity, nationalism, displacement, hunger, propaganda, and the human cost of political conflict. Nigeria appears as a young nation struggling to reconcile its many identities with the idea of a shared national future.
7. There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe
There Was a Country is Chinua Achebe’s personal account of Nigeria and Biafra, drawing on his experiences of the political crisis and Civil War. He reflects on colonial legacies, ethnic tensions, political leadership, violence, and the devastation experienced by civilians during the conflict. The book presents Nigeria’s history through the memory of someone who witnessed the collapse of an ideal of national unity and the consequences that followed.
POST-INDEPENDENCE & MILITARY-ERA NIGERIA
8. Violence by Festus Iyayi
Violence examines post-independence Nigeria through the experiences of people navigating economic inequality, exploitation, corruption, and the power structures surrounding them. The novel is particularly concerned with the gap between the promise of independence and the material realities experienced by ordinary Nigerians. It portrays a society in which political and economic systems can reproduce inequality even after colonial rule has ended.
9. The Trouble with Nigeria by Chinua Achebe
The Trouble with Nigeria is a direct critique of Nigeria’s political and social problems, particularly leadership, corruption, tribalism, indiscipline, and the failure of institutions. Achebe argues that many of the country’s difficulties are connected to the quality and choices of its political leadership rather than to some inherent defect in the Nigerian people. The book captures the frustrations surrounding nation-building and the distance between Nigeria’s potential and its lived political reality.
10. Everything Good Will Come by Sefi Atta
Everything Good Will Come follows Enitan Taiwo as she grows up and navigates friendship, family, gender, politics, and social change in Nigeria. Through her personal life, the novel reflects the larger transformations and tensions of post-independence Nigerian society, including military rule and changing expectations for women. Nigeria is seen through the intimate experiences of an individual whose private life is continually shaped by the political world around her.
CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA
11. Nigeria and the Nation-State by John Campbell
Nigeria and the Nation-State examines the political structures and challenges of the Nigerian state, paying particular attention to governance, political institutions, ethnic and regional divisions, and the country’s struggle to consolidate national cohesion. It offers a more analytical perspective on why Nigeria’s political system has developed as it has. The book helps place contemporary Nigerian politics within the longer history of state formation and political competition.
12. Be(com)ing Nigerian by Elnathan John
Be(com)ing Nigerian uses satire to examine the everyday behaviours, contradictions, expectations, and social habits associated with Nigerian life. Rather than focusing primarily on major historical events, Elnathan John looks at the ordinary ways people navigate institutions, religion, politics, class, work, family, and public life. The result is a revelation of Nigeria from the ground level – funny, uncomfortable, recognisable, and deeply concerned with what it means to live as a Nigerian.
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