54 Incredible Facts That You Might Not
Know
About Nigeria

1. The River Niger Bridge at Onitsha
was
constructed between 1964 and 1965 by Dumez- a
French construction company and cost
£5 million.

2. Patience Jonathan is one of Nigeria’s
most-
educated First Ladies, with an NCE, a B.Ed, and a
PhD from University of Port-Harcourt

.
3. The highest peak in Nigeria is
located in Taraba
and is called Chappal Waddi which
means “The Mountain of Death”.


4. There are 196 countries in the
world and at least
one Igbo person from Nigeria lives in
every one of
them.

5. The Pidgin word ‘Sabi’ came from
‘Saber’,
Portuguese and Spanish for ‘to know’.
Both
country’s ships traded slaves from the
Bight of Benin.


6. Katsina College (now Barewa
College in Zaria)
has produced 5 Nigerian Presidents/
Heads of State
since it was founded in 1921 in Katsina.


7. Ojukwu taught Murtala Mohammed
and Ben
Adekunle at Regular Officers Special
Training
School, Ghana. Both ‘fought’ their teacher during
the civil war.


8. At Nigeria’s independence in 1960,
there were
41 Secondary Schools in the North and
842 Secondary Schools in the South.

9. In 1983, Senator Arthur Nzeribe
spent $16.5
million to win a Senatorial seat in Orlu
(in Imo
State).

10. In 1973, the Federal Government
of Nigeria
considered officially changing the
name of “Lagos”
to “Eko”. Regarding “Lagos” as a
colonial name.

11. The geographical area now
referred to as
Nigeria was once referred to as
‘Soudan’ and
‘Nigiritia’

.
12. Offences punishable by death sentence after
the 1966 coup included
embezzlement, rape and
homosexuality.


13. MKO Abiola was named
Kashimawo (Let us wait and see) by his parents. He was
his father’s
twenty-third child, but the first to
survive infancy.


14. Jaja Wachucku was the first person
to refer to Lagos as a “no-man’s land” in 1947,
provoking a
national controversy.


15. Jollof rice, chicken Bosom , serve
of ice cream,
tea, coffee or Bournvita, with full cream milk and
sugar: Meal Cost = 50Kobo- Unilag in
the late
1970s


16. At the point death in 1989, Sam
Okwaraji was a PhD candidate and qualified lawyer
with an LL.M
in International Law (University of
Rome)


17. When British Bank of West Africa
(now First Bank) opened a branch in Kano in
1929, Alhassan
Dantata (Dangote’s Grandfather)
opened an
account depositing 20 camel-loads of
silver coins.

18. Jaja Wachuku is reputed to have
owned the
biggest one-man library in West Africa.
Balewa
sometimes referred to him as “Most
Bookish Minister


19. The colonization of Nigeria took
more than 40
years to achieve and the territories
were integrated
by the use of force. 20. Yoruba is spoken as a ritual
language the
Santeria cult in Carribean and South-
Central
America.


21. Slavery existed in the Nigerian territory before
the 15th century and was abolished in
the 19th
century- 1807 by the British.


22. At least 55 women were killed in
South-East Nigeria, in 1929 when the women
forced the
Umuahia warrant chiefs to submit to
their rule.


23. The coinage ‘Supreme Court’ was
first used in 1863 by the colonial administration
through the
enactment of the Supreme Court
Ordinance No. II.


24. MKO Abiola died suddenly on July
7, 1998, exactly one month after General Sani
Abacha died
mysteriously on June 8, 1998.


25. Agbani Darego was the only one
to wear a
maillot as opposed to a bikini during the Miss
Universe contest in 2001.


26. The ‘Ankara’ material is not
indigenous to
Nigeria. Our indigenous textiles
include the Akwete, Ukara, Aso-Oke and Adire.


27. Aloma Mukhtar is the first female
lawyer from
the North and went on to become the
first female
Chief Justice of Nigeria.

28. The area known as Makoro town
in Lagos was
first a swamp, later sand-filled by the
colonial
government and served as the first
bridge to the Island.


29. Esie Museum is Nigeria’s first
museum,
established in 1945. Once reputed to
have the
largest collection of soapstone images in the
world.


30. Aminu Kano formed the Northern
Teachers’
Association (NTA) in 1948, the first
successful regional organization in the history of
the North.
31. George Goldie, who played a major
role in
founding Nigeria, placed a curse on
anyone who attempts to write his biography.


32. In 1996, John Ogbu, a Nigerian
Anthropologist
firmly advocated for the use of
African-American
Vernacular to teach in the U.S 33. Hause Language indigenous to
Northern
Nigeria is spoken in 11 African States.
Germany,
French, U.S., and British International
radio stations broadcast in Hausa.


34. The surgeon who ‘killed’ Stella
Obasanjo was
sentenced to 1 year in prison,
disqualified for 3
years and fined €120,000.

35. The word ‘asiri’ means ‘secret’ in
Hausa,
Yoruba, Nupe and Igarra. It also
means ‘gossip’ in
Igbo.

36. Igbo-Ora in Oyo State, Kodinji in India and
Candido Godoi in Brazil are the towns
that produce
the highest number of twin births in
the world.


37. Bishop Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba, in 1857
produced a reading book for the Igbo
Language
and a full grammar and vocabulary of
NUPE in
1864.

38. The first TV broadcast in Nigeria
and Tropical
Africa was on October 31, 1959.


39. In 1978, a 50Kobo increase (from
#1.50 to #2)
in the cost of University Students’ meal per day
caused the ‘Ali Must Go’ protests.


40. Albert E. Kitson discovered coal in
Enugu in
1909. This discovery led to the
building of Port- Harcourt town in 1912.


41. Today, only Nigeria has a larger
black
population than Brazil. More than 3.5
million
Africans were captured, enslaved and transported
to Brazil.


42. Groundnut pyramids were the
invention of
Alhaji Alhassan Dantata to stack bags
before export.


43. In 1967, old traditional ruler, Oba
Akran and A.
Ademiluyi were jailed for 14 years (7
each) for
stealing £504,750 (#2.5b)

. 44. Since 1960, Nigeria has been
either ruled by
an ex-lecturer/ex-teacher or military
man. The
only exceptions are Azikiwe and
Shonekan.

45. If you visited Lagos in 1975, you
could spend
a day at the Presidential Suite of
Federal Palace
Hotel for #100, single room for #19.


46. The first aircraft to land in Nigeria landed in
Kano in July 1925. A British fighter jet
flew from
Khartoum (present day Sudan).


47. In 1895, Koko of Nembe (now in
Bayelsa) took 60 white men hostage. When the
British refused
his demands, more than 40 of those
men were
eaten.


48. The ‘Naira’ was coined by Chief Obafemi
Awolowo when he was serving as the
Federal
Commissioner of Finance.


49. Koma Hill (settlement in Adamawa
where people lived and practised the killing
of twins) was
discovered in 1986 by a NYSC corps
member.


50. The pilot (Francis Osakwe) that
flew Ojukwu away from Biafra (1970) was the same
pilot that
flew Gowon to Uganda (last flight as
Head of
State).


51. In 1986, Shehu Shagari was banned from
participation in politics for life. The ban
has still
not been lifted.


52. As the wife of the deputy Head of
State (Vice President of Nigeria) in 1984, Biodun
Idiagbon
personally ran a small ice cream shop
in Ilorin..


53. Koma Hills (Adamawa State)
inhabitants when discovered were observed to engage
in the
practise of borrowing wives among
themselves.


54. Juju, Dashiki, Yam and Okra are
words in the English dictionary that originated from
ethnic
groups located
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