Practical jokes on the Internet

[jducoeur]

Y'know, there's a worthwhile sociological experiment to be done: spread the word that Nigeria doesn't really exist -- it's just a hoax invented for the purpose of fake Internet rumors. Anything you hear about Nigeria is, by definition, false.

The Net is just primed for this. I bet a fair number of people would believe it...

Comments

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny you should mention this. After Britain ceded independence to her colonies in that region, around 1960, there was actually a unification movement that advocated for a federal nation to be called "Nigeria". It was supposed to include Northern Cameroon, Biafra, South Niger, the Yoruba Free State, and Lagos-Benin.

Internal squabbling between the three major political parties -- the Nigerian People's Congress, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, and the Action Group -- scuttled the idea. A series of conflicts (the Lagos Delta war, the Biafran insurgency, etc etc etc) discredited all of the pro-unification advocates, and by 1963 the modern borders were pretty much set.

There's still a small pro-unity political group in the region, called the "419s" (named for the UN Security Council Resolution 419, which was to have recognized a "Greater Nigeria") but they have been plagued by corruption in their ranks, and don't have much credibility.

The idea is one of history's interesting might-have-beens.