20 Interesting Facts You Never Knew 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 Msc 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 breast, served with 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.