On 3 February 1976 Nigeria's twelve states became nineteen (the date is the creation date recorded in this archive from Statoids).
- Date
- 3 February 1976
- Status
- Historical
- Location
- Nigeria
On 3 February 1976 Nigeria's twelve states became nineteen (the date is the creation date recorded in this archive from Statoids). According to the Library of Congress country study, Murtala Muhammad had appointed a five-member panel in August 1975 to study Gowon's earlier plan for a nineteen-state federation that would "help to erase memories of past political ties and emotional attachments". The panel recommended dividing the mainly Yoruba Western State into three states, the Igbo East Central State into two, and the six northern states into nine, only three of them mainly Hausa-Fulani.
The creation of more states had been part of the military government's programme since 1970, when Yakubu Gowon listed it among the tasks to be completed before a return to civilian rule (Library of Congress country study). Behind it lay the long agitation of minority peoples for their own states, which went back to the 1950s and early 1960s, when movements such as the United Middle Belt Congress sought to separate the middle belt from the Northern Region, and riots in Tivland in 1960 and 1964 were linked to this agitation (country study).
The new states broke up the large ethnic blocs of the old regions. Along with the new states, the government decided in 1976 to move the federal capital from Lagos to a new site at Abuja (Decree No. 6 of 4 February 1976, the day after the states were created; Wikipedia). The number of states continued to grow: to twenty-one in 1987, thirty in 1991 and thirty-six in 1996 (this archive's state records).
Ten of today's states date their creation to this day in this archive's records: Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Imo, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau and Sokoto. Benue State, the home state of the Tiv, was created at this time.
- Nigeria: A Country Study — Preparations for the Return to Civilian Rule — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- States of Nigeria — Gwillim Law, Statoids · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — The Gowon Regime — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — Politics in the Crisis Years — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
- Abuja — Wikipedia · link
How evidence is graded
- Verified: Supported by an official source, or by two or more independent sources that agree.
- Well documented: Supported by credible sources, but not yet independently confirmed.
- Reported: Found in a credible source; further corroboration is welcome.
- Needs corroboration: The evidence is thin or incomplete; more sources are being sought.
- Disputed: Credible sources or community accounts disagree; the differing accounts are noted.
- Uncertain: There is not yet enough information to classify this responsibly.
Sources are marked official, academic, reference, community or general web. Sources that copy each other count as one. Oral traditions are recorded as traditions, not as proven fact.
Archive ID: EVT-NIGERIA-DIVIDED-INTO-NINETEEN-STATES · Last updated 3 October 2026.
Spotted an error or have a source to add? Tell us.