95 Pretty Great Facts About Africa You Never Knew – Part 2

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1Twin nation

Twin nation

Nearly half of the world’s twins are born in Africa. The small West African nation of Benin has the highest concentration of twins in the world while Japan has the lowest rate of twinning.


2. Nigeria has overtaken Ireland in Guinness sales and is the number 2 consumer of Guinness worldwide


3. The Nigerian prince scam is so popular in Nigeria there was a hit song praising it.


4. Shell had a peaceful non-violent protest leader murdered by Nigeria because they wanted oil on the land of the protester. Shell was sued and settled the lawsuit for millions.


5. A person from Niger is called a Nigerien, but a person from Nigeria is called a Nigerian.


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6Goat

Goat

A goat was once arrested in Nigeria after vigilantes claimed it was an armed robber who turned himself into a goat with black magic.


7. In Nigeria's Yoruba culture, the second born twin is the elder twin. The first born twin (Taiwo) is kicked out of the womb by the second born twin (Kehinde) to 'test' the world. Kehinde knows it is safe once Taiwo starts crying.


8. Paul McCartney was mugged at knifepoint in Lagos, Nigeria. The thieves made off with all the demo tapes for the album Band on the Run, that he was down there to make. McCartney had to re-create the demos entirely from memory before the album could be made.


9. There are over 150 regional "kings" in Nigeria, and that one of them used to be a Professor Emeritus at University of North Carolina


10. The British outlawed the worship of Sopona, the god of smallpox, in Nigeria after a doctor infiltrated a powerful cult of the god's priests and discovered they were deliberately spreading the disease in a plot to increase their power.


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11Yoruba people

Yoruba people

The main genetic ancestry of most Black Americans and Black Caribbeans is Yoruba from modern day Nigeria (and surrounding countries)


12. Google has started a beta in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Thailand and Uganda called 'Google trader' where locals can contact sellers of anything from chicken egg incubators to entire houses.


13. In 2005, in Northern Nigeria a group of Muslim leaders declared the polio vaccine to be a conspiracy to sterilize the true believers. Subsequently, the disease began to spread again


14. Nigeria has the 3rd largest film industry in the world in terms of earnings. It is nicknamed 'Nollywood'.


15. Teenagers in East Baltimore rate their communities more negatively than 15-17-year-olds living in Nigeria and New Delhi.


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16Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh has more total English speakers than Canada and that Nigeria has more total English speakers than in the UK.


17. In 1995, scammers based in Nigeria defrauded the director of a Brazilian bank out of $242 million, including selling him a fake airport.


18. Nigeria has one of the biggest space programs, and already have 3 satellites in orbit


19. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Switzerland is the best place where to be born, with Nigeria coming in the last place


20. In Nigeria, it's common to send money to another business in cash, on a 12-hour bus ride. This is currently the cheapest way to move money.


21Walls of Benin

Walls of Benin

The largest man-made structure in history were the Walls of Benin in present-day Nigeria. They were 4 times longer than the Great wall of China and contained a 100 times more material than the Kheops pyramid.


22. Electricity was introduced to Ethiopia in 1896 after Emperor Menelik II ordered two newly invented electric chairs as a form of humane capital punishment and realized they were useless in his country without electricity


23. The record for most passengers ever carried by a commercial airliner is 1,088, by an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Solomon, which involved the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and started on 24 May 1991. This figure included two babies born on the flight.


24. A regiment in the British Army owns the oldest drum in the world which they took from King Theodore of Ethiopia. Young officers used to wear it while drinking beer as an initiation into the regiment.


25. The article quoting UNICEF that "70% of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction" was in error. UNICEF's survey says its 7.8% and almost entirely in rural areas.

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