Google says that there are 525 native languages in Nigeria.
I'm from the Igbo tribe and I can tell you that there are more than 60 different types of Igbos. I was lucky enough to grow up in a part of the Igbo region where we speak the central Igbo. That's, the type used in writing Igbo books. This makes it easier for me to understand other kinda Igbos with proper attention. It's like how an English person speaks English and it sounds different from what you hear from an Irish person. Or how Liverpudlians speaks scouse and it's hard for an American to understand the words.
Now, I'm sure that Google didn't take note of these when they gave that figure.
When you talk about the other languages like Hausa, Yoruba, Efik... And co. They are different by a country mile. Hehe. It's so different, you will never understand a thing without settling down to learn the other language.
Wow, that's a LOT of languages!
I grew up in the Midlands in England, so I guess it's a similar situation to you with Igbo, in that I can understand most of the British and Irish dialects. Southerners and northerners struggle to understand one another, though. It also means that my accent is neutral enough that I can be understood by most English speakers. When I came to Australia and was helping out at my daughter's school, the teacher would get me to do some reading tests and would always give me the Scottish girl to test. I'm pretty sure it was because she struggled to understand her accent. 😆 I recall the poor girl getting rather stressed when an assistant was listening to her reading and kept correcting her, when she was saying the right word, but it didn't sound like it to an Australian's ear.
Hahaha... Exactly. I've been enjoying the scouse accent so much. Both scouse and Irish accent usually cracks my ribs whenever I listen to it. As for the main English (most part of England), it's more Shakespearean and always sounds so poetic.
Yet, people will just say 'English Language' without realizing that some native English speakers finds it hard to understand themselves whenever these accents comes into play. Haha.
This shows how diverse these languages can be.