Consular responsibility for the Bight of Benin was hived off from the consular district of Fernando Po and established in Lagos in 1853. Lagos was added to the protectorate of Southern Nigeria in 1906, which was in turn merged with the other protectorates to form the colony and protectorate of Nigeria in 1914, with its capital at Lagos.

Nigeria adopted a federal system of government in 1954, with three regional capitals at Ibadan, Enugu and Kaduna. It achieved independence and joined the Commonwealth in 1960, and became a republic in 1963. Abuja, in the centre of the country, was selected as the site for a new federal capital in the mid-1970s as Lagos on the coast became increasingly unsuitable and the federation needed a capital that was ethnically and religiously neutral. The city was mainly built in the 1980s and formally became the capital in December 1991. The high commission completed its move to Abuja in 1997, whereupon the Post at Lagos became a deputy high commission.