Lake Chad Chad Game Reserve, which covers half of the area next to the lake that belongs to Nigeria. The whole lake has been declared a Ramsar site of international importance. Speaking at the United Nations 73rd General Assembly, the President of Nigeria urged the international community to assist in combatting the root causes of conflict surrounding the Lake Chad Endorheic basin. Recent violence in the region has been attributed to competition between farmers and herders seeking irrigation for crops and watering of herds respectively. Plans to divert the Ubangi River into Lake Chad were proposed in 1929 by Herman Sörgel in
Niger far east as western Niger. The Kanem-Bornu Empire was an empire that existed in modern-day Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Libya. The empire first existed and prospered as the Kanem Empire as early as the 9th century and later as the Kingdom of Bornu until 1900. In the 19th century, contact with Europe began with the first European explorers—notably Monteil (French) and Barth (German)—to travel to Niger. Following the 1885 Berlin conference during which colonial powers outlined the division of Africa into colonial spheres, French military efforts to conquer existing African states were intensified in all French colonies including Niger.