Education
30 Facts about Nigeria you may not know.
Did/Do you know that?
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 a PhD 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, serve of 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.
21. Slavery existed in the Nigerian territory before the 15th century and was abolished in the 19th century- 1807 by the British.
22. At least 55 women were killed in South-East Nigeria, in 1929 when the women forced the Umuahia warrant chiefs to submit to their rule.
23. The coinage ‘Supreme Court’ was first used in 1863 by the colonial administration through the enactment of the Supreme Court Ordinance No. II.
24. MKO Abiola died suddenly on July 7, 1998, exactly one month after General Sani Abacha died mysteriously on June 8, 1998.
25. Agbani Darego was the only one to wear a maillot as opposed to a bikini during the Miss Universe contest in 2001.
26. The ‘Ankara’ material is not indigenous to Nigeria. Our indigenous textiles include the Akwete, Ukara, Aso-Oke and Adire.
27. Aloma Mukhtar is the first female lawyer from the North and went on to become the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria.
28. The area known as Makoro town in Lagos was first a swamp, later sand-filled by the colonial government and served as the first bridge to the Island.
29. Esie Museum is Nigeria’s first museum, established in 1945. Once reputed to have the largest collection of soapstone images in the world.
30. Aminu Kano formed the Northern Teachers’ Association (NTA) in 1948, the first successful regional organization in the history of the
Education
4-year-old boy dies after being fed meat in Abuja school
Miguel Ovoke, a four-year-old pupil of Brickhall School in Kaura, Abuja, has died during feeding hours.
Ovoke was said to have been pronounced dead upon arrival at Excel Specialist Hospital, following complications during his lunch on Wednesday.
PUNCH reports that the hospital issued a death certificate stating the boy was brought in by his teachers around 11 am in an unconscious state.
The report, signed by Akinwande Ajayi, on behalf of the medical director, indicated that he was brought in “on account of aspiration on meat while feeding at school”.
The hospital said upon examination, the medical team found that “the boy’s pupils were fixed and dilated with a nonreactive response to light”.
Ovoke’s peripheral pulses were said to be “impalpable, blood pressure was unrecordable, and there was no cardiopulmonary activity or respiratory excursions, silent chest”.
The medical report indicated that all efforts to resuscitate him failed while concluding that he was “brought in dead”.
The sudden nature of Ovoke’s death has, however, prompted his parents to seek justice by contacting Deji Adeyanju, a human rights lawyer.
Brickhall School is said to be owned by Joy Emodi, a member of the 5th and 6th senate. She was appointed chairman of the senate committee on education.
Emodi also served as the special adviser on national assembly matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Efforts by TheCable Lifestyle to get the authorities of the school to comment did not materialise as of the time this report was filed.
Education
Father arrested for writing UTME for son
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says cases of people having double national identification numbers (NIN) made impersonation possible in the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The statement from the exam body came after a father and his son were arrested for alleged impersonation in the ongoing UTME.
The father, whose name has not been disclosed, was said to have impersonated his son to help the latter pass the university entrance examination.
Ishaq Oloyede, registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), confirmed the development in an interview on Wednesday.
Oloyede inspected the Kaduna State University (KASU) Computer Based Test (CBT) centre after which he spoke to the press.
He said it is unfortunate that some parents have descended so low in morals to the extent of resorting to such shameful acts.
“Two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will tell his son when they are locked in the same cell,” Oloyede said.
Oloyede said the 2024 examination recorded huge success, except for a few cases of impersonation.
He said impersonation became possible because some people now have multiple NINs.
“For those who engage in cheating, they should know that it does not pay. The technology is helping us to check that. Across the country, most of the problem we have is impersonation,” he said.
“For instance now, we say we have NIN. We now have cases of people with two NINs. That has defeated the purpose of identity verification. We will take that up with NIMC; that there are people who have two NIN.”
Oloyede said a total of 1.94 million candidates sat for the 2024 UTME.
He added that those who have missed the exam for reasons not caused by JAMB should forget about it.
The registrar said the board cannot spend millions to reorganise a session for candidates who missed it due to their recklessness.
“Most of those candidates who missed the UTME are students from hostels who were made to register through schools because of the money the schools want to collect from the parents in the name of JAMB, They would now put 30 students in one bus,” he said.
“They will now be dropping them in different locations. By they get to the last student’s centre, he is already late for the exam. You will now see the principal writing to me. What business do I have with a school?
“Even a religious body wrote to me that ‘the following 100 candidates, I want them to write their exams on a particular day of the examination’. They were even deciding for me the school to post the candidates. How is that possible?”
Education
Haruna Dlakwa appointed acting VC of Borno State University
Babagana Zulum, the Borno governor, has approved the appointment of Haruna Dlakwa as the acting vice-chancellor (VC) of Borno State University in Maiduguri.
Bukar Tijani, secretary to the state government, confirmed Dlakwa’s appointment in a statement on Wednesday.
Tijani said the appointment followed the recommendation of the university’s governing council at its 10th meeting on April 15.
‘’Zulum extends warm congratulations to Dlakwa and expects the best until the substantive Vice-Chancellor is appointed for the university,’’ he said.
Until this appointment, Dlakwa was the deputy vice-chancellor of academics at the university.
Borno State University was only established in 2016. It has five faculties — including Sciences, Management, Arts, Social Science and Education — with over 20 departments.
The pioneer vice chancellor of the university was Umar Kyari Sandabe.
In June 2021, the university’s senate building was inaugurated by Muhammadu Buhari, former president of Nigeria.
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