On October 1, 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain, with Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa serving as the country’s first Prime Minister. On October 1st 2026, Nigeria marks 66 years of independence. The country takes its name from the Niger River, which runs through it, and has long carried the nickname “Giant of Africa,” a title that only fits better with time.

Nigeria is now the sixth most populous country in the world, home to roughly 242 million people, and Africa’s most populous nation by a wide margin. Some projections have it reaching 400 million by 2050, which would make it the third most populous country on Earth. That scale comes with genuine diversity: more than 250 ethnic groups and over 500 languages, with the Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Fulani as the four largest groups, together making up roughly two thirds of the population.

Nigeria did not just inherit English from its colonial history, it remade it. Nigerian Pidgin is now spoken by more than 100 million people in Nigeria alone, and it travels well beyond the country’s borders into Ghana, Cameroon, and Benin. It became enough of a fixture that the BBC launched a dedicated Pidgin news service out of Lagos in 2017, one of its first fully digital language services anywhere in Africa.

More than anything, Pidgin is what lets Nigeria’s 250-plus ethnic groups actually talk to each other.

Nigeria’s economic weight matches its population. It remains Africa’s largest oil producer, pumping around 1.5 to 1.7 million barrels a day, and in 2026, the country became a net exporter of petrol for the first time in its history, powered largely by the Dangote Refinery. That refinery has also reshaped Africa’s wealth rankings. Aliko Dangote, already Africa’s richest man for over a decade, has seen his fortune climb to roughly $34 billion in 2026.

Nigeria exports its screen and its page just as confidently. Nollywood produces close to 2,500 films a year, about 50 a week, making it the second largest film industry on Earth by output and a direct employer of more than 300,000 people. In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first African ever awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Decades before Burna Boy or Wizkid, Fela Kuti built something in Lagos that changed music history: Afrobeat, a genre fusing highlife, jazz, and funk into long, politically charged tracks, sung deliberately in the same Pidgin spoken by the people he was writing about. What exists today, Afrobeats, is a different, later sound that carries his name and some of his spirit without being the same genre. Even Fela’s own son has drawn that line publicly. Still, the current generation is doing plenty of its own history-making. Burna Boy is the most Grammy-nominated African artist ever, with 13 nominations across five consecutive albums and a win in 2021 for Twice As Tall. Wizkid’s Essence became the first Nigerian song to ever chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Tems became the first Nigerian woman to win a Grammy, in 2023. And Davido was inducted as a voting member of the Recording Academy in 2025, putting Nigerian influence inside the institution itself, not just on its shortlists.

Ask any Nigerian and Ghanaian which country makes better jollof rice, and you’ll get a debate that has run for years and shows no sign of slowing down. That pride runs through everything on the table. Egusi soup, made from ground melon seeds, changes completely depending on which tribe is cooking it. Amala, a smooth swallow made from yam flour, pairs with ewedu and gbegiri in the southwest. Pounded yam remains the standard against which every other swallow gets measured. Moin moin, a steamed bean pudding, shows up at nearly every celebration. And suya, thin strips of meat coated in a dry pepper and groundnut spice mix and grilled over open flame, turns any street corner into a destination the moment the smoke starts rising. Food, in Nigeria, is never just food. It’s identity, region, and pride, all on one plate.

That’s exactly what Dishout’s Nigerian partner stores are built to deliver, food cooked the way it’s supposed to taste, no shortcuts. Many of them even carry “Buka” in their name, a nod to the casual, no-frills eateries back home where the food has always mattered more than the decor.

In the Bronx, order from Eazylife Restaurant or 234 Buka Foods & Grocery. In Brooklyn, choose from Surulere, Buka New York, Ecowas Kitchen & Market, Ewe’s Delicious Treats, Brooklyn Suya, Wakky’s African, or Naira Bread. In New Jersey, find 9ja Buka, Mama G African, Mama Afrika, Aboki Suya, Eatwell, Voila Afrique Iyalaje, or Burkindi. And in Atlanta, order from Saint-Louis Cuisine, Fufu Catering Kitchen and Grill, Broni Home, Little Lagos, Buka 2, or Smokin’ Suya.

Happy Independence Day to every Nigerian in the diaspora and beyond! Have a good one Omo.

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