Nigeria And Her Big Fat Irrelevant World Records

Nigerian companies/organizations like breaking records. Not just any records, Guinness World records. Except that most of the records we break in Nigeria are big, fat and irrelevant!
Take Guinness Nigeria for example … in 2013 they broke the record for the largest Soccer Jersey in the world at the Teslim Balogun Stadium with a large Jersey signed by super celebrities, with a banner that read “LETS MAKE HISTORY TOGETHER” in the background.
History?
Not to be outdone by their alcoholic counterparts, STAR Lager Beer in 2014 built the largest bottle tree in the world. You are probably asking what a bottle tree is? Well it is a Christmas tree structure made out of … you guessed it … BOTTLES. STAR basically built the tree by stacking 8000 empty bottles of STAR to form their tree, smashing the previous Chinese record of 1000 beer bottles in the process.
Bringing us to my all time favorite … 2013 Unilever brushing record set in Lagos. Where 300,000 students from over 600 public schools came together to brush their teeth for 1 minute straight after which then Lagos State Governor on Public Health Dr. Yewande Adeshina commended the students for being part of the feat, describing it as historic for their generation.
Historic? For their Generator? And let’s not forget
NESTLE Nigeria, who in 2013 smashed the former Dubai record for the largest
buildingbreakfast cereal table. As a total of 1,700 people sat down at the Cocoa Mall in Ibadan chomping on MILO crunchy cereals.
And how can we talk records in Nigeria without talking about Religion!
The Redeemed Christian Church of God unofficially has the largest auditorium in the world … with over a million worshipers being able to worship at a time! While in 2014, over 25,000 Nigerians assembled in the Uyo Township Stadium for what was to become the largest number of Christmas carol singers in the world! But like all the other records above, this was clearly another pointless record! Wrong!
Because according to Governor Godswill Akpabio “…if we imbibe the virtue of love and stand together in brotherhood in the New Year, we would keep setting records”
Keep setting what type of more records?
I mean have you asked yourself, what happened to the largest soccer Jersey? Is it being used to cloth the homeless? Or feed the needy? What about the 8,000 empty bottles of STAR beer? What ever happened to it? Is it beautifying Nigeria somehow or improving our standard of living? Or the longest breakfast cereal table or the largest gathering of choir singers? Or the 300,000 students that brushed their teeth’s simultaneously? What impact have these records had in our lives? Nothing!
What if we aimed for more meaningful records…
Like the largest stadium in the world (or Africa for starters), so that we can generate consistent revenue from game tickets or tourist visits? What about the longest bridge in the world, so that we could alleviate our deadly traffic? Or the largest refinery in West Africa, so that we can stop importing our Oil. What if organizations, government officials, churches and people in general fought to break records that are meaningful and stand longer than 8000 empty bottles of beer!?!
I will tell you what if…
Nigeria will finally be able to break the record currently being held by South-Africa as the true GIANT of Africa! And that is a record worth breaking…