The date isn’t what you think
Four things you have crossed, walked past or heard of. Each one is a different age from the one you would guess, and each one changed for a reason that does not get said. Four questions. Two minutes.
Every answer comes with its source.
Kano’s city wall was begun in the 1090s. How long did the building take?
The wall was . The foundation was laid by Sakri Gijimasu between 1095 and 1134 and the work was completed in the middle of the fourteenth century, under Zamnagawa. It was extended again in the sixteenth. Today , and the site has been .
Two and a half centuries to build. Rather less than that to lose most of it.
There has been a Carter Bridge in Lagos since 1901. How old is the bridge you actually drive over?
The crossing is old. The structure is not. A second bridge , replacing the 1901 original, and . In April 2026 the Federal Executive Council approved .
Three bridges have stood on that line. A fourth was approved this year.
Kano’s groundnut pyramids were gone by the late 1970s. What happened to the crop?
A statutory board set the price farmers were paid, and . The crop crossed the border, or came out of the ground as something else. — money held back from the farm gate in the years the pyramids were still being stacked.
Drought was real and it made things worse. The price was a decision somebody took.
Kofar Mata has been dyeing cloth on the same ground since 1498. Of its 144 pits, how many were still working by 2023?
In 2020, . By 2023 the same association said . The pits did not empty for want of skill — , and .
A month of work against cloth printed in a day, at half the price.
Each of these has a date you can look up and a reason you have to go and find. The date is the easy part.
Get the next one before anyone else.
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