Nigeria, a country in sub-Saharan Africa has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Mere mention of the name Nigeria, people's minds fly to all sorts of unwholesome acts.
Things like terrorism (Boko Haram), endemic poverty, political instability, corruption and other unprintable issues come to mind when Nigeria is mentioned.
But beyond the terrorist attacks, beyond the endemic poverty, beyond deep-seated corruption, beyond internet scams, and all sorts of bad things; beyond the ugly image lie a great great country with amazing environment, people, places and events; wonderful culture, practices, resourceful persons, hospitable people, amazing foods and unbelievably great facts and history.
Below are just a few of the things you might not have known about Nigeria.
The walls of Benin (800-1400 AD), in present day Edo State, Southwest Nigeria, are the longest ancient earthworks in the world. They enclose 6500 square kilometers of community lands that connected about 500 communities and is over 16000 km long.
One-Fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa’s Population Lives in Nigeria.
Of the estimated one billion people that are resident in sub-Saharan Africa, about 170 million of them are in Nigeria.The Niger Delta in southwestern part of the country is the second largest delta on the planet. It also has the highest concentration of monotypic fish families in the world, and is also home to sixty percent of Nigeria's mangrove forests. Nigeria's mangrove forests are the largest in Africa and third largest on earth.
Nigeria is very Famous for Butterflies.
Calabar, in southwestern part of the country, is one of Nigeria’s regional hubs, and contains the world’s largest diversity of butterflies. Do you want to see them?, then tour Cross River National Park, where over 300 species live, including the gorgeous Papilio monachus, the unusual blue Iolaus iasis, and the newly-discovered Tetrahanis okwangwo.Nigeria houses seven percent (7%) of the total languages spoken on earth. Taraba state alone has more languages than 30 African countries.
Now you know beyond the bad images the media display about Nigeria.
In my next post, I will tell you about the rich and unique political history and other interesting facts about Nigeria.