Throughout Africa societies that had been preponderantly rural for most of their history were sing a rapid and profound reorientation of their societal and economic lives toward metropoliss and urbanism. As of all time greater Numberss of people moved to a little figure of quickly spread outing metropoliss ( or. as was frequently the instance. a individual chief metropolis ) . the cloth of life in both urban and rural countries changed in monolithic. frequently unanticipated ways. With the largest and one of the most quickly turning metropoliss in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria has experienced the phenomenon of urbanisation every bit exhaustively as any African state. but its experience has besides been unique–in graduated table. in pervasiveness. and in historical ancestors. Modern urbanisation in most African states has been dominated by the growing of a individual archpriest metropolis. the political and commercial centre of the state ; its outgrowth was. more frequently than non. linked to the defining of the state during the colonial epoch.
In states with a coastline. this was frequently a coastal port. and in Nigeria. Lagos fitted good into this form. Unlike most other states. nevertheless. Nigeria had non merely one or two but several other metropoliss of major size and importance. a figure of which were larger than most other national capitals in Africa. In two countries. the Yoruba part in the sou’-west and the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri countries of the North. there were Numberss of metropoliss with historical roots stretching back well before the coming of British colonisers. giving them typical physical and cultural individualities.
Furthermore. in countries such as the Igbo part in the sou’-east. which had few urban centres before the colonial period and was non extremely urbanised even at independency. there has been a monolithic growing of newer metropoliss since the 1970s. so that these countries in 1990 were besides extremely urban. Cities are non merely independent centres of concentrated human population and activity ; they besides exert a powerful influence on the rural landscape. What is typical about the growing of metropoliss in Nigeria is the length of its historical extension and the geographic pervasiveness of its coverage.
