@ZIM DRILL-  The Nigerian geographic terrain is most favourable to steady sustainable population growth relative to other African countries. Nigeria had the good fortune of not being totally 'lost' under the shackles of colonialism which only lasted approximately about 100 years. The territory called Nigeria can be described as economically stable and self reliant in food until not too long ago. Nigeria was never attractive enough for the British invaders to indulge their messianic zeals/ mischief, as they did in many places like Southern Africa and East Africa. Nigerian(s) were left virtually to their own idiosyncracies and devices as they were Pre-colonial and during British incursion. Most of the ethnic nationalities were well structured, organised/ self sustaining societies, that the small band of invaders did not find the need to uproot and destroy them as they did in other places they invaded. Besides, the weather and vegetation was not to the liking of the invaders(Mosquitoes) either, so Nigeria had a lot in her favour. There was no grand mineral discovery like in other places as to elicit nefarious greed/ encourage the invaders to stay and engage the locals in unnecessary encounters/battles like Land expropriation for minings, huge plantations and other economic activities attractive only to the invaders like huge game reserves some as large as most European countries. Certainly Nigeria never suffered such rabid land grabbing indignities let alone mass dislocation of communities from sustaining  ancestral lands to inhospitable/barren lands and later cities like Joburg etc. Nigeria geographically is blessed with some of the most fertile lands for food production conducive for population growth. Is it any wonder that Zimbabwean settlers(whites) find Nigeria very attractive indeed. Nigerians like most Africans 'semi illiterates' of course, don't practice safe sex/ contraception-I guess. I think some of the geographical,social/economic/political & historical dynamics conspired favourably for population growth in Nigeria unlike other places. You don't procreate where you don't have enough food/ arable lands. Never mind the propaganda of so-called 'white owned' farms being productive etc in Zimbabwe- they were growing tobacco, mange-tu and other non food crops for export. Zimbabwe was a classic case of war of disinformation waged against an economically inept administration. The war of liberation was about LAND and nothing less after long period of displacement and dislocation from arable lands to barren inhospitable lands or homelands/ home steads or so-called 'protected' villages during the war. Your knowledge of history/geography should be able to furnish you with some insight about population growth or otherwise in Africa. I am happy that Zimbabweans fought for their freedom and won. Despite the vagaries of life in Zim, there's a whole lot of potential and confidence amongst the people than amongst the SA who are yet to have a fight for their Land. In Nigeria, natural disasters such as drought, locusts invasion of farmlands and floods etc are almost non-existent/rare occurrence relative to the rest of Africa.

@ZIM DRILL .Nigeria have always been densely populated even before colonial rule.If you read from your history books , you will notice that most of the slaves sold during the trans-atlantic trade were of Nigerian descent.
Our land have always been highly populated because it has always been in out thought to live closely together.This explains why there are up to 250 nationalities just within this modest geographical space called Nigeria.
This is also the reason why a country like Ethiopia with 85 million people is also densely populated.

Ogbuefi 1:

@ZIM DRILL .Nigeria have always been densely populated even before colonial rule.If you read from your history books , you will notice that most of the slaves sold during the trans-atlantic trade were of Nigerian descent.
Our land have always been highly populated because it has always been in out thought to live closely together.This explains why there are up to 250 nationalities just within this modest geographical space called Nigeria.
This is also the reason why a country like Ethiopia with 85 million people is also densely populated.

@Ogbuefi 1-- That the geographical place called Nigeria have over 250 ethnic nationalities, may also explain how attractive/conducive the place is for human habitation and development hence the population growth.
There is no 'proof' that 'most' of the slaves 'sold' during the trans-Atlantic trade are of Nigerian descent. The whole of Africa to the Southern African region was affected. You have to study the diaries, routes/Log books of the slave traders/nations(Arabs/Europeans). They had well established forts, stations, routes and preferences hence places like- Goree(Senegal), Cape-Verde islands, Mauritania, Morocco old forts in the Gambia, Guinea -Bissau, Cote d'Ivoire, the infamous Elmina Castle/Cape coast(Ghana), Dahomey(Benin) Cameroons, Gabon, Congo, Angola, Namibia and South-Africa and much of East-Africa where the Portuguese definitely had a foothold before the arrival of the aggressive Dutch/British. The Nigerian coast was not exactly welcoming but relatively hostile hence no purpose built/ grand established slave holding places and forts/castles. The Badagry Slave market etc is nothing compared to other places I mentioned above. The Nigerian ethnic Nationalities were well organised and relatively have an entrenched sense of self/group hence some of the coastal kings were banished/exiled for obstruction to trade/other reasons. The propaganda about much of the slaves are from Nigeria are simply rubbish and does not stand up to close scrutiny. There are obvious similarities in the cultures of some places along the West Coast of Africa but that does not necessarily imply that the slaves could've come from the territory we now call Nigeria- e.g. some of the cultural practices of some ethnic groups in present day Ghana, Togo and Benin-RP share similarities to the 'Yoruba' nationality or ethnic group of present day Nigeria. Can we then deduce that such slaves from Ghana/Togo/Benin are from 'Nigeria' because they happen to have socio-cultural traits similar to the Nigerian 'Yoruba' nation/people? Same gross analogy goes for the rest of Nigeria notably the Efik, Ijaw and Ibo people of Nigeria may indeed share some cultural traits similar to each other and to other Africans in Central -Africa- South Africa but that is not sufficient enough reasons to believe that such slaves/descendants in the Americas are from Nigeria alone. It isn't!

@Cheikh, All available records suggests that a substantial number of the slaves sold to the western hemisphere were of Nigerian descent.Bonny at that time was reputed to have the largest slave market in the entire west coast of Africa.
Most of the slaves sold from East Africa were channelled to the Arab world and not across the Atlantic.According to a written document by a notorious English slave dealer one Capt. Adams in the 18th century, he noted that 20,000 slaves were annually sold from the five slave rivers of the Niger Delta.Of the 20,000 sold as slaves ,16,000 or so of them were derived from a hinterland nation called IBOS.In other words he noted that within 20 years ,no less than 320,000 of this people would have been sold as slaves.In addition he also noted that from the Calabar axis, no less than 50,000 people of the same ethnic stock were sold as slaves within the same period.
This corresponds more or less with the estimates given by slave traders from Europe that 70,000 slaves were sold annually from Africa to the western World.Of this figure, 3,500 came from the Badagri axis while 18,000 came from the Bonny axis. amounting to 22,500 or about one-third of the Africans sold to the slavers.
In the early 18th century when slavery was abolished in the British sphere of influence, the chief slavers beame the Portuguese and Spaniards and they found a perfect source from Yorubaland.These were mainly captives from the Yoruba civil wars of the 19th century.

@Ogbuefi1

I did not imply that in post that slaves were never bought/sold from the Nigerian coast neither did I imply that East African slaves went to the West. I meant that slaves were shipped across the Atlantic from all over the West coast to the Southern African coastline as well. The records you're quoting may be right but it's not the whole picture indeed. Some slave traders actually gave up on slaves from the Nigerian coastline because of too much hassles/revolts from slaves from our shoreline and interference by some big 'chiefs'/kings in the Nigerian axis. It was not smooth sailing as it was made to appear by pseudo-African historians.
My statement was that we cannot always assume that majority of the slaves across the Atlantic came from specifically the Nigerian axis. It's not true. Besides, your thinking that the slavery began from the Calabar axis before the Badagry axis is pure fantasy. I thought that the Portuguese landed on our shoreline a long time before the British- Did you not realise that Lagos, Porto Novo, El mina, Bijagos Cameroons, Forcados, Sao Tome, Sierra Leone before the settlement of freed slaves by the British are all Portuguese words in origin. The Anglo saxons were late comers to our shores/trade. Did you not know that the Portuguese were already on our shores by the 15th century and had visited the great Oba of Bini(Benin) Kingdom/ exchanged ambassadors with the royal court. The records/paintings are displayed proudly for public view in the museum of discovery in Lisbon. Much of the coastal countries that the British later colonised/claimed as part of their imperial booty, were originally Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Spanish territories- eg South Africa before the Dutch was first visited/settled by the Portuguese, China(Macau), Japan, Indonesia before the Dutch, India(Goa), the whole of the East African coast etc. Pls do not be one dimensional in your research in subjects pertaining to Africa. Arabs were already doing brisk business with the hinterland of Africa long before the Europeans till this day hence the lingering bad blood between Africans and the hybridised African Arabs in many places including Nigeria. Our history is very diverse/ interesting/ sad too. The legacy of foreign incursion/conquest is perhaps one of the numerous reasons of our loss of proper African sovereignty or identity. Our social structure was interrupted/stopped altogether in some places hence we are in flux/ reason you and I use a foreign language to mediate our smooth communication. Some our languages have been affected by the influence of Portuguese long before the English language that came later. Perhaps if the Bini empire was not interrupted by the British, may be some so called Nigerians today, will be communicating in the 'Bini' language because the empire extended to modern day Benin Republic . Anyway, keep in mind that the Bini empire/most African empires were relatively benevolent unlike the European/Arab conquerors who imposed their languages on their subjects;-They seem to have the monopoly of interpreting/telling our stories(histories) and we believe them too because they have imposed/we adopted their language after so called independence without intellectual rigour/resistance by our so called founding fathers .