A/HRC/28/64/Add.2 9. Modern Nigeria has been greatly influenced by its colonial history under the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the nineteenth century, the British gained influence over a vast territory in West Africa that included several kingdoms and domains. At the end of that century, the British Empire established in the Delta region the Niger Coast Protectorate while it expanded its influence over the region. In 1903, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was established and the colonial rule over the territory known as Nigeria began. 10. During the British colonial period (1900-1960), the territory was subjected to frequent regional reorganizations for administrative purposes. The Niger Coast Protectorate became Southern Nigeria, while in the northern part strategic alliances were made with local leaders to control the different territories; local governments were left in the hands of the traditional rulers, but were ultimately supervised and controlled by British officers, a policy known as “indirect ruling”. In 1914, the South and North regions were merged into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. In 1954, a federal constitution further divided the territory into three regions (North, East and West), where the major ethnic groups (HausaFulani, Igbo and Yoruba) held dominant positions over the others. As the London conferences in 1957 and 1958 for the independence of Nigeria were ongoing, minority groups, fearing a future domination by the three major groups after independence, started to advocate for the creation of separate states. 11. In 1957, the British Government appointed the Commission on Minority Groups in Nigeria (known after its Chairman as the “Willink Commission”) with the mandate “(1) To ascertain the facts about the fears of minorities in any part of Nigeria and to propose means of allaying those fears, whether well- or ill-founded; (2) To advise what safeguards should be included for this purpose in the Constitution of Nigeria; and (3) If, but only if, no other solution seems to the Commission to meet the case, then, as a last resort to make detailed recommendations for the creation of one or more new States”. The 1958 report of the Commission did not recommend the creation of new States, on the grounds that they would soon lead to new minority groups with similar claims, and instead encouraged a balance of power between the different groups under a united Nigerian State. The Commission suggested broad measures, including the establishment of councils in each “minority area” that would “foster the well-being, cultural advancement and economic and social development of the minority area and to bring to the notice of the regional government any discrimination against the area”. 12. In 1960, Nigeria attained independence and, in the following years, significant territorial changes took place aimed at providing ethnic minority groups with more autonomy. In 1963, a fourth region (Mid-Western region) was created; in 1967, the four regions were broken up into 12 states and, by 1976, the number of states within the Federation had reached nineteen. At present, , the country comprises 36 states, in addition to the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital city Abuja is located, and six geopolitical zones.8 Several civil society organizations highlighted that, despite the number of territorial reorganizations, the issue of minority groups has not been solved and, in many States, tension between dominant and non-dominant groups persist. 8 6 The National Conference that took place in 2014 recommended the creation of 18 additional states; see Final Draft of Conference Report, p. 280, available from https://media.premiumtimesng.com/national-conference/wp-content/uploads/National-Conference2014-Report-August-2014-Table-of-Contents-Chapters-1-7.pdf.