Lebanese Nigerians

Lebanese Nigerians (Arabic: نيجيريون لبنانيون) are Nigerians with Lebanese ancestry, including Lebanon-born immigrants to Nigeria. Also known as Levantine Nigerians, some of the community have ancestry originating from other areas of the Levant and the broader Arab world. With a population approximated between 30,000 and 100,000, the group form one of the largest communities originally from outside Nigeria.

Lebanese immigration to Nigeria started in the late nineteenth century, with migration from Ottoman Syria to the protectorates that later formed British Nigeria. The immigration — mainly from Lebanon but also from other parts of the Lebanese diaspora in West Africa — increased in the early twentieth century after the end of the first World War, being concentrated first in Lagos then in other urban areas throughout colonial Nigeria. While some Lebanese Nigerians have left Nigeria — either permanently or temporarily for education or work — and reduced the original community's size, the further waves of immigration to Nigeria occurring amid the Lebanese Civil War and ongoing Lebanese liquidity crisis have added to the community since the late twentieth century.