Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Africa's pioneering female driver
Africa’s pioneering female driver was Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. While it is not known whether she was the first woman in Africa to drive a car, she is the first African woman to be issued a driver’s licence and the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. In the attached photo, you can see the Volkswagen Beetle she used to set the record. Also embedded is a picture of her with her famous son, Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, in London before he found success.
Dr Oluyinka Olutoye, Chief of Surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Texas, and a pioneer of fetal and neonatal surgery, is the first person on Earth to successfully perform a surgery by taking out an unborn fetus from its motherโs womb and putting it back after the surgery.
Haruna Abdulazeez from Kano holds the record for being the first person on the planet to have the most American football touches with the feet in one minute.
Nigeria is the first and only African country to win an Olympic gold medal in men’s football, which we did at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, beating Brazil, then the reigning FIFA World Cup champions.
Nigeria was the first country to prove that the wild Ebola virus could be tamed. After the Nigerian government declared a public health emergency, the World Health Organisation declared Nigeria Ebola-free on Monday, October 20, 2014, with only eight deaths and 12 survivors from its 20 cases.
The family with the highest number of members, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), is the Nigerian family of the Dafinones, with the first being their scion, Senator David Omueya Dafinone, whose son, the incumbent Senator of Delta Central, Ede Omueya Dafinone, is also an accountant.
The first African artist to reach one billion streams on Spotify is Ayodeji Balogun Ibrahim, AKA Wizkid.
The first African woman to win an Olympic gold medal in a field event is Chioma Ajunwa, who won the long jump at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, USA.
The first African woman to earn a PhD in Mathematics was the Iron Lady, Professor Grace Alele-Williams. She also became the first female Vice Chancellor in Nigeria when she rose to lead the University of Benin in 1985.
The first Black African military ruler to have voluntarily handed over to a democratically elected civilian administration, at a time when his military colleagues did not even want him to leave due to the effectiveness of his administration, is General Olusegun Obasanjo.
The first Black African Nobel laureate in an academic category is Nigerian Professor Wole Soyinka.
The first Black African to head His Majesty’s opposition in the United Kingdom is a Nigerian named Kemi Badenoch.
The first person born and bred in Africa to have won a Pulitzer Prize is a Nigerian named Dele Olojede. The first television station in Africa was the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV), which began broadcasting in Ibadan, Western Region of Nigeria, on Friday, October 31, 1959, at the instance of the Premier of the region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
The only nationality to have three dollar billionaires in the annual list of Forbes Magazine’s inaugural list of the most powerful, impactful, and wealthiest Black Americans. They include Adebayo Ogunlesi, Tope Awotona, and Wemimo Abbey. Collectively, they are worth over $4 billion. No other nationality has such a high figure.
The youngest person ever to have won the Africa Cup of Nations as both a player and a coach is Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, a Nigerian.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is the most successful book ever written by an African, with 30 million copies sold and translated into over 60 languages.
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.
