Did you know?

The river Niger is the third biggest river in Africa? With a length of 1,174.6 kilometres, it is considered the life supporter of West Africa as it provides water to the Guinea, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Niger, Benin and Nigeria. In 2001, a Nigerian, Mss. Agbani Darego, was declared the most beautiful girl on the planet? Mrs. Darego won the Miss World beauty pageant making her the first African in 50 years to receive that honour. Nigeria has a film industry that launches a significant amount of home videos per year? It has actually been named Nollywood and it has caught the attention of the Government as a significant foreign exchange earner. Famous artists like Sade and Seal are Nigerians? Connection Machine, the world's fastest super computer in 1989, was developed by a Nigerian? Mr. Phillip Emeagwali, a Nigerian inventor created this computer that achieved the stunning speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second. His achievement was widely recognised and Mr. Emeagwali obtained the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, which can be described as the Noble Prize of the computing field. Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa? With around 140 million inhabitants, Nigeria actually counts for one quarter of Sub-Saharan Africa's population and it is actually estimated that one in every six black people in the world is a Nigerian. In contrast, in terms of surface, the country is only 15% of the West African subregion. Nigeria is the 8th top net exporter of oil in the world? In 2003, Nigeria exported 1.93 million barrels per day ranking it among the top 10 oil exporters in the world. The capital of Nigeria was moved from Lagos to Abuja in 1991? Abuja, located in the physical centre of the country, was chosen as new capital not only to decongest the heavily populated city of Lagos, but also for his symbolic location in the middle of the country representing a centre of unity. Between 1976 and 1979 current President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State and in an unprecedented move, he organised general elections and handed over power to a civil government? For this deed, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, will go down in history as the first African military leader to voluntarily give way to a democratic process.