JAMB History 2020 past questions
Ten questions from the 2020 JAMB History paper, with answers and explanations. We hold 80 questions from this paper, and the Skolra app has all of them.
JAMB History 2020 questions and answers
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1.
The first Africa to be ordained bishop by the Christian missionary school in addition to consecration as bishop of the Niger territory is ___________
- ASamuel Ajayi CrowtherCorrect
- BEdward Wilmot Blyden
- CJames Johnson
- DHenry Townsend
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Answer: A
Samuel Ajayi Crowther was consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral in 1864 by the Church Missionary Society, becoming the first African bishop in the Anglican Church. He was appointed Bishop of the Niger Territories, covering the lands along the River Niger. Crowther, a freed Yoruba slave, had earlier translated the Bible into Yoruba and was renowned as a linguist and evangelist across the region.
- A
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2.
United Nation Organization emerge as a result of collapse of ____________
- AInternational Labour Organization
- BConcert of Europe
- CPan-African Congress
- DLeague of NationsCorrect
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Answer: D
The League of Nations, established after World War I in 1919, collapsed after failing to prevent the outbreak of World War II. Its inability to enforce collective security—demonstrated by its failure to stop Japanese aggression in Manchuria, Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and German expansionism—discredited the organisation. Following the Allied victory in 1945, the United Nations was founded at the San Francisco Conference to replace the League and serve as a more effective instrument for international peace.
- A
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3.
The Efik are primarily located in _________
- ACross River StateCorrect
- BOgun State
- CDelta State
- DOndo State
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Answer: A
The Efik people are an ethnic group whose homeland is in present-day Cross River State, particularly around Calabar. Historically, they were prominent traders and established the powerful trading state of Old Calabar (Creek Town, Duke Town, Henshaw Town), which was central to the Atlantic trade — including the slave trade — from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Calabar, the state capital of Cross River State, remains the cultural heartland of the Efik.
- A
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4.
Mfecane in South Africa happened between ____________
- A1690 and 1720
- B1815 and 1840Correct
- C1880 and 1920
- D1750 and 1780
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Answer: B
The Mfecane (a Nguni word meaning 'the crushing' or 'the scattering', also called Difaqane in Sotho) was a period of widespread chaos, warfare, and migration among the indigenous African communities of southern Africa. It occurred roughly between 1815 and 1840 and was set off largely by the expansionist military campaigns of Shaka, the Zulu king, which displaced numerous ethnic groups and triggered chain migrations and conflicts across the region.
- A
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5.
One of these is not a social development under colonial rule.
- AConstruction of churches and places of worship
- BCreation of welfare and social services
- CIntroduction of marketing boards for the purchase of cash cropsCorrect
- DEstablishment of mission schools and hospitals
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Answer: C
Schools, hospitals, churches, and welfare services are classified as social developments introduced during the colonial period. The marketing boards, which were set up to purchase export crops such as cocoa and groundnuts from farmers at fixed prices, are an economic instrument of colonial policy—not a social development. Marketing boards were primarily used to extract surplus value from agricultural producers and to fund colonial administration rather than to improve social conditions.
- A
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6.
The three existing groups before the creation of Organizations of Africa Unity in 1963 were __________
- ALagos, Accra, and Addis Ababa groups
- BCairo, Tunis, and Dakar groups
- CCasablanca, Monrovia, and Brazzaville groupsCorrect
- DAbidjan, Nairobi, and Khartoum groups
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Answer: C
Before the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa in May 1963, independent African states had divided into three rival blocs: the Casablanca Group (radical states favouring immediate continental union), the Monrovia Group (moderate states preferring gradual cooperation), and the Brazzaville Group (largely Francophone states aligned closely with France). The OAU was created to unite these competing groupings under a single continental body.
- A
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7.
___________ constitution gave full blown to federalism in Nigeria.
- ARichards Constitution of 1946
- BClifford Constitution of 1922
- CLyttleton Constitution of 1954Correct
- DMacpherson Constitution of 1951
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Answer: C
The Lyttleton Constitution of 1954 (named after Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttleton) established a fully federal structure in Nigeria for the first time. It clearly defined and separated the powers of the federal and regional governments, giving the three regions (North, East, West) significant autonomy over their internal affairs. While the Richards Constitution of 1946 introduced regionalism and the Macpherson Constitution of 1951 developed it further, it was the Lyttleton Constitution that completed the transition to a genuine federal system, paving the way for independence in 1960.
- A
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8.
The decrease of Boer influence in South Africa was as a result of
- AThe abolition of the slave trade by Britain
- BThe Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902Correct
- CThe arrival of French Huguenot settlers at the Cape
- DThe discovery of diamonds in Kimberley
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Answer: B
The Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) ended with the defeat of the Boer republics—the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State—by British forces. Under the Treaty of Vereeniging (1902), both republics were annexed as British Crown Colonies. Although the Boers eventually gained political power through Afrikaner nationalism in 1948, their independent political sovereignty was permanently destroyed by the outcome of this war.
- A
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9.
One of the following is regarded as the founding father of the Kanuri?
- ASaif ibn Dhi YazanCorrect
- BSundiata Keita
- CAskia Muhammad
- DOduduwa
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Answer: A
The Kanuri people of the Lake Chad region trace their political origins to the legendary figure Saif ibn Dhi Yazan (also written as Seif ibn Dhi Yazan), a Yemeni hero from pre-Islamic Arabian tradition. According to Kanuri oral tradition and the Diwan (dynastic chronicle) of Kanem, the founders of the Saifawa dynasty — which ruled the Kanem-Borno empire for nearly a thousand years — claimed descent from this figure. Sundiata Keita was the founder of the Mali Empire; Askia Muhammad was a ruler of the Songhai Empire; and Oduduwa is the mythical ancestor of the Yoruba people.
- A
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10.
The Efik serve as ___________ between the white trader on the coast and the inland tribes of Cross river.
- AMiddlemenCorrect
- BInterpreters
- CWarriors
- DTax collectors
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Answer: A
The Efik people of Calabar occupied a strategic position on the Cross River estuary, allowing them to act as middlemen in the trade between European merchants anchored on the coast and the inland communities further up the river. They controlled access to trade goods such as palm oil, slaves, and ivory, and grew wealthy by monopolising this brokerage role. Their trading state, centred on Old Calabar, became one of the most commercially powerful city-states in southern Nigeria.
- A
The questions come from past JAMB, WAEC and NECO papers. We use software to help write the answer options and explanations, and every answer is checked twice before it goes on the site. How we check
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Practise all 80 questions we hold from the 2020 paper, on a timed CBT screen
Every question has the answer and an explanation, in the Skolra app.