Historicalh Flags Flown In Africa: Nigeria
I am a fan of banners and flags featured on different, including very tall commercial flagpoles, in Africa. Many flags have specific meaning and are use for signaling and identification purposes. There are a good number of African flags that feature similar color. These colors include green and yellow, and at times the color red also.
Considered a relatively young republic, Nigeria was first a protectorate of the British Empire or Kingdom before it was turned into a colony so many years ago. It first became a country really during the early years of the previous century. Nigeria’s independence was officially recognized back in 1960. Even though the country’s organization and regime is fairly young, the inhabitants of the territory have much more of an extensive history however.
Back in the day, and really some hundreds of years ago, explorers from both Portugal and Spain were the very first to commence trading in Nigerian territory and area. The Portuguese and Spaniards traded with the inhabitants that lived along the shoreline and also discussed a trade in slaves. In the 1900-s the territory came under rule of the Kingdom of Great Britain till some six decades later, when it became an independent nation.
Benin is located on the westside of Nigeria and is one of the smaller states located in Africa. Benin’s variant flag as hoisted at times on modern day residential flag poles and such was adopted back in 1975, only some 25 years ago. The red colored star in this relatively young flag reflects the country’s adoption of Communist ideology. The green field stands for agriculture. With a change of regime, a new national flag was introduced in 1990. This banner flies the so-called “Pan-African” colors, which are: green, yellow and red.
The current Nigerian banner flies beautifully from home type or residential flag poles, even in minimal breeze conditions. It is an adaptation of the winning entry of a flag design competition that was held back in ’59. The winning entry displayed or featured a red colored sun with sun-rays that were placed right at the top of the white vertical band. These features were excluded from the current national flag however.
The Nigerian flag’s colors have interesting meaning. The color green is said to represent agriculture, which really is the country’s chief source of wealth. White symbolizes or represents peace and unity. Interestingly, the coat of arms was adopted back in 1960 as well. Even though not displayed on the national Nigerian banner, it is featured on the presidential flag, which obviously belongs to the country’s president.
Visit the contributor’s site for more information on international historical flags and flag poles.
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