Nigeria's Internal Struggles

Nigeria is formally divided into 36 states, and a “federal capital territory.” These states are informally grouped into six “geopolitical” zones — three in the north, three in the south — mainly for the purposes of proportioning federal government jobs. The southwest region, the most populous of the three southern zones, is home to an ethnic Yoruba population and is by no means predominantly Christian. Moshood Abiola, the first southerner to win a presidential election in Nigeria — the June 12, 1993, election, which would be annulled by the outgoing military government — was a Muslim from the southwest. While there are no official numbers available (the last census that included data on religious affiliations was in 1963), most estimates suggest that the region is evenly split between Christians and Muslims. The two faiths live side-by-side. Intermarriage is common — three of the region’s six state governors are Muslim men married to Christian women; the speaker of the Lagos State parliament is a Muslim married for the last 30 years to a Christian pastor.