The Nigerian Political System - An Informal Explanation

Ok so basically the Nigerian political system is a Federal Republic with a bicameral legislature that's actually modeled after the United States. This essentially means it doesn't have a monarch and that is has branches of government, legislative (a senate and a house), judicial (which in Nigeria is called the National Assembly, and is headed by the Supreme Court of Nigeria), and the executive, headed by the president (who is elected), in order to balance power, just like the US. One of the big differences is that the Nigerian president is the head of the government and the state, as well as this thing they have called a multi-party system, which means that more than one party can gain control of the government either independently or working as a coalition. This is probably the biggest difference between Nigeria and the US and actually makes Nigeria kind of idiosyncratic because it's like super uncommon for presidential governments to have multi party systems.

This is the current president, Goodluck Jonathan. That's right, HIS NAME IS GOODLUCK.

The common laws are super similar to Britain and Wales because of the history of British imperialism (ahem, I mean, influence), but they have their own Constitution and everything called the Constitution of Nigeria that created the framework for all their laws and stuff. Another difference though between Nigeria and the US is that Nigeria actually has four different common law practices and which ones are in place kind of depend on where you live, and most people abide by a mix of all of them.

• English Law is what's followed in England and Wales and all those countries (duh)
• Common Law is the law developed by the Nigerian court system
• Customary Law is based on the customary practices of Nigerian natives, incorporated and manifested into law.
• Sharia law is a different set entirely, but it's only used in the northern part.

The only other key differences between the US and Nigeria are the number of members in the house and Senate, which is obvious because Nigeria has 39 territories instead of 50 states. Also, all senate and house members have four year terms, and exactly like the US the president has four year terms, renewable once. 

So many similarities between the US and Nigeria!

I hope you learned the basics of the Nigerian political system!

http://www.commonwealthofnations.org/sectors-nigeria/government/government_ministries/

http://www.onlinenigeria.com/government/