SOME USELESS THINGS TO 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 so many 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 breast, 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 in present day Nigeria.
55. Nigeria has more English speakers than England,
and more Muslims than Saudi Arabia, Syria and
Afghanistan combined.......
.............................feel free to add yours
