Ethnicities of Nigeria on a Map

A significant portion of conflicts in Africa arise from internal politics, either due to religious beliefs/extremism, or due to ethnic group tension. For example, Nigerian politics is extremely complicated: since an Igbo does not want to be ruled by a Yoruba/Hausa, and a Hausa does not want to be ruled by a Yoruba/Igbo, etc... So if politics is intertwined with ethnic identity, then ethnic groups become important to learn.

So your comment is American biased imo, because American society is fortunate enough to be extremely homogenous. Aside from "black" vs. "white" (and perhaps Native Americans), white people in America don't see themselves too differently from each other, and the majority of them didn't mind having a black president.

In Sub-Saharan Africa (unless you have a majority like Wolof in Senegal), there'll always be ethnicity-based conflicts. Being British myself, i never considered myself "racially" different from another European, and imo we take that heavily for granted.

'ethnicities are irrelevant because they don't have solid borders' wow :D