Did You Know
Did You Know
Explore Hidden Facts About Nigeria
73
Nigeria first participated in the Olympic Games in 1952.
74
Currency notes and coins were first issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria on July 1, 1959. The denominations were the pound, ten shillings, and five shillings.
75
In 1858, William Broughton Davies became the first Nigerian to qualify as a medical doctor.
76
The oldest fossil remains found in Nigeria (believed to date to 9000BCE) were excavated near Akure, the capital of Ondo State.
77
Nigeria is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Osun-Osogbo Grove in Osun State and the Sukur Cultural Landscape in Adamawa State).
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The River Niger is called orimili/orimiri (meaning "great water") in Igbo and Oya in Yoruba.
79
The humanitarian-aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières was established by French doctors who had volunteered their services during the Nigerian Civil War.
80
The Niger Delta is the second-largest river delta in the world (after the Ganges Delta) and accounts for 7.5% of Nigeria’s total landmass.
81
The first secular secondary school set up in Nigeria was the Mayflower School. It was established by writer and educator Tai Solarin on January 27, 1956.
82
Western Nigerian Television (WNTV), the first television station in Africa, was established by Obafemi Awolowo on Oct 1, 1959.
83
The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was partly a rejoinder to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
84
While at Government College, Umuahia, Achebe’s reading habits were so excessive the principal had to ban the reading of textbooks between five and six o’clock in the afternoon because of him.
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Achebe was awarded the first ever Nigerian National Merit Award in October 1979.
86
The Sokoto Caliphate (1804 – 1903), established by Shehu Usman dan Fodio, was the longest-lasting theocracy in West Africa.
87
Bunmi Awoniyi is the first Nigerian to be appointed a Superior Court judge in the US. She was appointed to the Sacramento Superior County Court in California.
88
Nnamdi Azikiwe was selected to represent Nigeria in the British Empire Games of 1934 but was boycotted by South Africa for renouncing his English name “Benjamin”.
89
Margaret Ekpo was the first woman to win a seat in the Eastern Regional House of Assembly in 1961.
90
"Boycott the Boycottables" was a famous slogan coined by Mazi Mbonu Ojike used to rally Nigerians nationalists against the colonial masters.
91
The University of Nigeria, Nsukka was Nigeria's first indigenous university. It was founded in 1955 and modelled on the American university education system.
92
Dominic Cardinal Ekanem was the first Nigerian to be installed as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He became a cardinal in April 1976.
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Ola Orekunrin, MD of Flying Doctors Nigeria, is the youngest person to qualify as a doctor in the United Kingdom. She gained her degree at the age of 21.
94
In 1961, Latunde Odeku became the first US-trained black neurosurgeon and the first professor in that field in Nigeria.
95
A film was first screened in Nigeria in 1903 at Glover Hall in Lagos. The Alake of Egbaland and his chiefs were in attendance.
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By land mass, Niger State is the largest in Nigeria