Number of universities founded in Nigeria 1948-2020

Between 1948 and 1970, six universities were founded in Nigeria. All of them were federal universities. Over the last decades, the number of universities founded in the country increased considerably. During the last 20 years, the number of private universities grew significantly.

Some of Nigeria's oldest universities are the University of Ibadan, the University of Nigeria, the Obafemi Awolowo University, and the University of Lagos. These four institutions were founded between the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1960s.