Empire Day was instituted across the British Empire in 1904 (first observed 1905) on the late Queen Victoria's birthday, 24 May. In Nigeria — both the Northern and Southern Protectorates, and after 1914 the unified Colony and Protectorate — it became the principal colonial public holiday: schools, mission stations and Native Authorities organised parades, march-pasts, drill displays, sack races and tug-of-war on District Officer grounds; African schoolchildren in starched white uniforms saluted the Union Jack, sang 'God Save the King' and 'Rule Britannia', and received commemorative tins of biscuits or rolls of cloth from the District Officer.
The holiday was renamed Commonwealth Day in 1958 by the Macmillan government in London, but in Nigeria the older name 'Empire Day' persisted in school timetables into the 1960s. After independence on 1 October 1960 the day was quietly dropped from the official calendar; Commonwealth Day itself was moved to the second Monday of March in 1977. Empire Day survives in Nigerian memory mainly through the photographs in family albums of the late-colonial generation and through the long-running 'Empire Day Brigade' bands of some old mission schools (Kings College Lagos, Government College Umuahia, Queen's College Lagos, Barewa College Zaria).