The Federal Republic of Nigeria is on the west coast of Africa, neighboring Benin, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and the Gulf of Guinea. Nigeria gained it’s independence from Great Britain on 1 October 1960, and ever since the government has been modeled after that of the United States of America. That is to say that the executive branch of government can have a maximum of two four-year terms, there is a bicameral legislature, the upper house has three seats per state and the lower house is based on population. Nigeria has three types of laws: they have a derivative of common law from their former British colonization, customary law passed down through indigenous tribal norms, and Sharia law present in the majority Muslim northern part of the country. Nigeria also recently became the largest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa, and is considered part of the next BRIC-like group of economies, called MINT.