Nigeria is a country in West Africa. It shares land borders with the Republic of Benin to the west, Chad and Cameroon to the east, and Niger to the north. Its coast lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the south and it borders Lake Chad to the northeast. Notable geographical features in Nigeria include the Adamawa Plateau, Mambilla Plateau, Jos Plateau, Obudu Plateau, the Niger River, Benue River, and Niger Delta.
The Niger Delta Basin, also referred to as the Niger Delta province, is an extensional rift basin located in the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Guinea on the passive continental margin near the western coast of Nigeria with suspected or proven access to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe. This basin is very complex, and it carries high economic value as it contains a very productive petroleum system. The Niger delta basin is one of the largest subaerial basins in Africa. It has a subaerial area of about 75,000 km2, a total area of 300,000 km2, and a sediment fill of 500,000 km3. The sediment fill has a depth between 9–12 km. It is composed of several different geologic formations that indicate how this basin could have formed, as well as the regional and large scale tectonics of the area. The Niger Delta Basin is an extensional basin surrounded by many other basins in the area that all formed from similar processes. The Niger Delta Basin lies in the south westernmost part of a larger tectonic structure, the Benue Trough. The other side of the basin is bounded by the Cameroon Volcanic Line and the transform passive continental margin.
The Ijaw people, otherwise known as the Ijo people, are an ethnic group found in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, with significant population clusters in Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers. They also occupy Edo, Ondo, and small parts of Akwa Ibom. Many are found as migrant fishermen in camps as far west as Sierra Leone and as far east as Gabon. They account for about 1.8% of the Nigerian population according to CIA Factbook. The Ijaws are one of the most populous tribes inhabiting the Niger Delta region and the eighth largest ethnic group in Nigeria.
Gabriel Imomotimi Okara was a Nigerian poet and novelist who was born in Bumoundi in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005). In both his poems and his prose, Okara drew on African thought, religion, folklore and imagery, and he has been called "the Nigerian Negritudist". According to Brenda Marie Osbey, editor of his Collected Poems, "It is with publication of Gabriel Okara's first poem that Nigerian literature in English and modern African poetry in this language can be said truly to have begun."
The Escravos River is a river in southern Nigeria, close to the city of Warri. "Escravos" is a Portuguese word meaning "slaves" and the area was one of the main conduits for slave trade between Nigeria and the United States in the 18th century. The Escravos is a distributary of the Niger River, it flows for 57 kilometres (35 mi), ending at the Bight of Benin of the Gulf of Guinea where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Chevron, a major US oil company, has its main Nigerian oil production facility at the mouth of the Escravos River. This oil terminal pumps approximately.
The Forçados River is a channel in the Niger Delta, in southern Nigeria. It flows for approximately 198 kilometres (123 mi) and meets the sea at the Bight of Benin in Delta State. It is an important channel for small ships. The Forçados River splits from the Niger River at Toru-Abubou near Agbere Town in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the same point as the Nun River.
The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitical zone, one state (Ondo) from South West geopolitical zone and two states from South East geopolitical zone.
Brass Island is an island in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. It is the site of Twon-Brass, the head of the Brass, Nigeria local government area in southern Bayelsa State.
Bayelsa state is a state in the South South region of Nigeria, located in the core of the Niger Delta. Bayelsa State was created in 1996 and was carved out from Rivers State, making it one of the newest states in the federation. The capital, Yenagoa, is susceptible to high risk of annual flooding. It shares a boundary with Rivers State to the east and Delta State to the north across the Niger River for 17 km and the Forçados River for 198 km, with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean dominating its southern borders. It has a total area of 10,773 square kilometres (4,159 sq mi). The state comprises eight local government areas: Ekeremor, Kolokuma/Opokuma, Yenagoa, Nembe, Ogbia, Sagbama, Brass and Southern Ijaw. The state is the smallest in Nigeria by population as of the 2006 census. Being in the Niger Delta, Bayelsa State has a riverine and estuarine setting, with bodies of water within the state preventing the development of significant road infrastructure.
Yenagoa is a Local Government Area and capital city of Bayelsa State, Southern Nigeria. It is located at the Niger-Delta region of the country at coordinates 4°55′29″N6°15′51″E.
The current conflict in the Niger Delta first arose in the early 1990s over tensions between foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who feel they are being exploited, particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw. Ethnic and political unrest continued throughout the 1990s despite the return to democracy and the election of the Obasanjo government in 1999. Struggle for oil wealth and environmental harm over its impacts has fueled violence between ethnic groups, causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic militia groups, Nigerian military and police forces, notably the Nigerian Mobile Police. The violence has contributed to Nigeria's ongoing energy supply crisis by discouraging foreign investment in new power generation plants in the region.
Environmental issues in the Niger Delta are caused by its petroleum industry. The delta covers 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi) within wetlands of 70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi) formed primarily by sediment deposition. Home to 20 million people and 40 different ethnic groups, this floodplain makes up 7.5% of Nigeria's total land mass. It is the largest wetland and maintains the third-largest drainage basin in Africa. The Delta's environment can be broken down into four ecological zones: coastal barrier islands, mangrove swamp forests, freshwater swamps, and lowland rainforests. Fishing and farming are the main sources of livelihoods for majority of her residents.
Burutu is a Local Government Area in Delta State, Nigeria. It lies on the coast of the Niger Delta on two sides of the Forcados River, a channel of the River Niger, 30 kilometres upstream from the Bight of Benin. It has served as a link between river transport and the sea when the Royal Niger Company established a base there in the late 19th century. People living in this region are mostly of the Izon ethnicity.
The Mein tribe of the Ijaw people lives along the Forcados River in Delta State, Nigeria. The Mein trace their origins to Benin City, via parts of the central Niger Delta. Important Mein settlements include Ogobiri and Kiagbodo.
Oloibiri is a small community in Ogbia LGA located in Bayelsa State, in the eastern Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The inhabitants of Oloibiri community are mainly fishermen and farmers. It is the first place that oil was discovered in Nigeria.
Niger Delta University (NDU) is in Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State in the southern part of Nigeria. It was established in 2000. It is a Bayelsa state government-funded university. In 2002, It was established by Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha, then governor of Bayelsa state. It has two main campuses, one in the state capital, Yenagoa, which contains the law faculty, and the other in Amassoma. It also has its teaching hospital known as Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH) in Okolobiri.
Akassa, is a settlement at the southernmost tip of Nigeria in Bayelsa State where the Nun River estuary meets the Atlantic Ocean. It has a lighthouse that has stood since 1910, Akassa Lighthouse.
The Brass River is one of the branches of the Nun River, which in turn is a branch of the Niger River, in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. In the 19th century the river was an important trading route, first for slaves and later for palm oil. Brass River Crude Oil is named for a refinery on the river.
The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is a militant group in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The group publicly announced their existence in March 2016.
The Niger Delta swamp forests is a tropical moist forest ecoregion in southern Nigeria. It consists of freshwater swamp forests in the Niger Delta of the Niger River. This swamp forest is the second largest in Africa after the Congolian swamp forests. Although there are large cities just outside the ecoregion, the area has been relatively isolated by the difficulty of building roads across the swamps, although this is changing with development of oil and logging industries. Scientific surveys have only begun in recent years, and new species were being identified into the 1990s. Crude oil exploration and pollution has been a threat to forests in the Niger Delta region.
