From Nineteen to Thirty-Six States

Between 1987 and 1996 the military governments of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha raised the number of Nigeria's states from nineteen to thirty-six. According to the creation dates recorded in this archive (from Statoids):

On 23 September 1987 two states were created, Akwa Ibom and Katsina, bringing the total to twenty-one.

On 27 August 1991 the number rose to thirty; twelve of today's states date their present form to that day: Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kogi, Osun, Taraba and Yobe.

On 1 October 1996 six more were created, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Nasarawa and Zamfara, giving the thirty-six states that exist today, together with the Federal Capital Territory.

The demand for new states had deep roots. According to the Library of Congress country study, minority movements after independence sought states of their own: the United Middle Belt Congress campaigned for the separation of the middle belt from the Northern Region, the Edo and western Igbo for a Midwestern Region, and Ijaw and Efik-Ibibio leaders for a region on the coast between the Niger Delta and Calabar. Successive governments answered with the twelve states of 1967 and the nineteen of 1976.

The reorganisations of 1987 and 1991 were made by the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, who came to power in 1985, and that of 1996 by General Sani Abacha (Wikipedia's history of Nigeria).

Each state is divided into local government areas, of which Nigeria today has 774 (Wikipedia, States of Nigeria). Under the 1999 constitution the thirty-six states are semi-autonomous units that share power with the federal government, and each has an elected governor, a single-chamber House of Assembly and its own judiciary (Wikipedia).

Each state of this archive records its own creation date and predecessor units; see the States & FCT section for the details of each reorganisation.