Flag of Nigeria

How to read it

Michael Taiwo Akinkunmi, a Nigerian student at Norwood Technical College in London, saw a newspaper advertisement in 1958 asking for designs for the flag of the soon-to-be-independent country, ThisDay reports; the Peoples Gazette says his entry was chosen from over 2,000. The flag was raised in place of the Union Jack on 1 October 1960, Nigeria’s independence day. The Flag and Coat of Arms Act of 1960 governs its use: without a licence, flying the national flag in a public place with anything added to it, or modified or defaced, is an offence, and where the national flag flies with a state flag it must be at least the same size and fly above it.

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What flag is green, white and green?

Nigeria’s: three vertical stripes, green, white and green. The National Orientation Agency describes the authentic flag as having “no symbols” on it.

The sun that was dropped

Akinkunmi’s design had a red sun with rays in the middle of the white band, the Peoples Gazette reports, and the committee overseeing the flag removed it, leaving the two green bands and the white. The government paid him £100. The Gazette’s account of the meaning differs slightly from the agency’s: the green bands for the country’s natural wealth and forests, the white for peace. President Goodluck Jonathan made him an Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic in 2014, and he died on 29 August 2023.

The flag with the coat of arms

Flags with the coat of arms added are not the national flag. Before the 65th independence anniversary in 2025, the National Orientation Agency’s directorate for the Federal Capital Territory warned that flags sold by roadside vendors with the coat of arms, inscriptions or altered colours breach the approved 1960 design, and that altering the flag violates the Flag and Coat of Arms Act.