When Sophy Ijeoma, a makeup artist from Nigeria, decided to comment on an acquaintance’s Facebook marriage advert as a joke, she never imagined she would marry the man just seven days later, but I guess she underestimated the power of social media.

The day before New Year’s Eve, Nigerian furniture maker Chidimma Amedu decided it was to find a wife. Instead of probing his friends or going on a dating site, he just posted an advert on Facebook, asking all women interested in becoming his wife to reply to his post. It read “Am of age to and I am ready to say I do and I am wasting no time. Send in your applications. The most qualified will be married on January 6, 2018. Application closes 12 midnight, December 31, 2017. I am serious about this… and don’t say you did not see it on time. Goodluck.”

Read More »

Mohammed Ssemanda, a 50-year-old Muslim man from Uganda, made news headlines all over Africa last month, when he married three women in a single ceremony, because he couldn’t afford to marry them separately.

Ssemanda, a food vendor from the town of Katabi, in Uganda’s Wakiso district, caused quite a shock when he showed up at the local parish with three women, all wearing white wedding gowns. He told reporters on the scene that his wives all know that he isn’t doing very well financially, but they all agreed to marry him out of love. The 50-year-old added that the women aren’t jealous of each other and know that he will work very hard to support them.

Read More »

On the banks of the Ruzizi River in Burundi lurks a monster of almost mythical proportions – Gustave, the man-eating crocodile. He has been around for over 60 years, and has allegedly killed over 300 people.

Since Gustave has consistently evaded capture, his exact size is unknown, but estimates from scientists and eyewitnesses place him somewhere between 18 and 25 feet long (5.5 to 7.5 meters). He weighs more than 2000 lbs (900 kg), or over half the weight of a typical car. He is the largest crocodile ever seen in Africa.  Due to his size, Gustave was initially estimated to be over 100 years old, but further observation revealed that he had a full set of teeth, which meant he was much younger than that. According to the 2004 PBS documentary Capturing the Killer Croc, he “should be nearly toothless,” and was thus estimated to be “probably no older than 60, and likely, still growing”.

Read More »

We’ve all got our physical flaws and learn to live with them. Well, some don’t, but that’s what plastic surgery is for. There is one person in Zimbabwe who not only relishes his ugliness but also get awards for it. William Masvinu from Epworth has been crowned Zimbabwe’s Mr Ugly 2017 and couldn’t be prouder! It’s his fourth title, and he’s fully convinced his claim is undisputed.

William was happy with the “recognition” in general but especially pleased to wrest back the title he lost to another contestant last year. Winning ugly contests apparently requires preparation, just as beauty pageants, and the 43-year-old unemployed man will now be prepping to wow the world in the Mr Ugly World competition set to take place next year in South Africa.

Read More »

Mass hysteria has broken out in the small southeast African nation of Malawi, where rumors of real-life blood-sucking vampires have become so widespread that groups of vigilante vampire hunters resort to murder to protect their communities.

At least 9 suspected vampires have been brutally murdered in Malawi since mid-September, including two men in the country’s second-largest city, Blantyre. According to police, both were stoned, and one was set on fire. Police have arrested over 140 people in connection with a vigilante group that has been targeting individuals accused of being vampires and sucking the blood of the innocents.

Read More »

Families in Ghana are increasingly turning to troupes of dancing pallbearers to send their loved ones off in style, and bring some joy to what is usually perceived as a very sad event.

Dancing pallbearers not only lift the casket at a funeral, they also lift the mood of attendees by putting on a show. They parade the casket on their backs and shoulders, while at the same time executing a complex choreography that often involves spinning around, dropping to the ground and even pretending to drop the casket, all to the delight of the audience. It’s definitely an unusual display, but families in Ghana are increasingly paying for the services of such troupes to give their loved-ones an upbeat send-off.

Read More »

Paul Sanyangore, a controversial pastor from Zimbabwe claims that he received God’s phone number from the Almighty Himself, and often receives calls from Him on how to best help his congregates.

Sanyangore, who also goes by the name “Pastor Talent”, first made the outrageous claim in February, after a video of him allegedly talking on the phone with God during a service at his church, Victory World International Ministries, went viral on social media. In an interview with Zimbabwean news site H-Metro, he revealed that he was indeed on the phone with the Almighty, adding that he was surprised to see people so shocked about the whole thing.

Read More »

Kurt Minnaar, a 33-year-old math teacher at Cape Town’s Eben Dönges High School uses hip hop beats and rhymes to make math lessons more enjoyable for his students.

Singing or listening to music during math class is usually frowned upon, but in Kurt Minnaar’s classroom, it’s actually a pre-requisite. The former choreographer and hip-hop artist is using his musical background to make the process of learning math a lot easier and less boring for his students. Minaar says that most kids today are into music and beats, and he’s basically taking the traditional math curriculum and fusing it with what they love to make it easier to learn and remember.

Read More »

Migingo, a tiny rock island on Lake Victoria, in Kenya, measures just 0.49 acres, but is officially home to 131 residents – although some sources put the population at around 1,000 – making it the most densely populated island in the world.

The so-called “Iron Clad Island” of Migingo (after the metal shack shanty town covering it almost entirely) has a very unclear history. According to some accounts, it was originally settled by two Kenyan fishermen, Dalmas Tembo and George Kibebe, who came here in 1991 and laid the foundation of today’s community. Others say that it was a Ugandan, Joseph Unsubuga, who came here first and then brought more of his fishing friends. It was this kind of contradicting stories, and the battle over the island’s fish-rich waters that created a long-standing conflict over the ownership of Migingo between Kenya and neighboring Uganda.

Read More »

Mike Eze-Nwalie Nwogu, co-owner of a nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria, was recently arrested for dehumanizing young girls by putting collars around their necks and parading them on a leash in public.

Nwogu, who is known as “Pretty Mike” among the socialites of the African metropolis, has apparently been turning young girls into “human puppies” for at least a year. His first appearance as a human puppy handler was recorded last year, while attending a wedding, but the photos snapped at the event didn’t attract much attention. He must have gotten quite a lot of attention for his stunt, because he has been pulling it regularly ever since. But as his controversial appearances became more frequent, they started causing a stir on the internet, with many users complaining that nothing was being done about his degrading treatment of women. The last straw was a photo of Pretty Mike holding two girls on a leash under the eyes of five police officers who seemed to be laughing at the bizarre sight.

Read More »

Authorities in Ghana have recently shut down a fake United States embassy in the capital Accra that had been issuing illegally-obtained but authentic visas for the last 10 years. The fake institution was being run by members of organized crime from both Ghana and Turkey.

The real U.S. embassy in Acra is a large office building complete with security fencing and U.S. military guards, located in one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods, while the fake one was just a rundown, pink two-storey building with a corrugated iron roof and a United States flag flown outside. There were no actual Americans working there, not even con artists. Instead the staff was made up of English-speaking Ghanian and Turkish citizens. And yet, for 10 years, the organized crime ring operating this fake embassy was able to convince people to pay thousands of dollars for visas and false identification documents. Maybe it was the portrait of Barrack Obama that police found inside that made the place seem legit.

Read More »

Mohammed Bello Abubakar is one of the most controversial figures in Nigeria. Despite having no discernible income, the 92-year-old man somehow convinced 107 women to marry him throughout his life, 97 of which are still his wives. He claims that marrying as many women as possible is a divine assignment he has received from God.

Mr Bello first shot to fame in 2008, when a series of articles revealed that he had 86 wives and around 150 children, either living with him on his compound in Bida, Niger state, or in his house in Lagos. Muslim clerics accused him of breaking religious rules, which most scholars agree allow a man to marry up to four women, as long as he can provide for all of them and treat them equally. He was given a very simple choice, either divorce 82 of his wives or face the consequences. He refused, arguing that there was no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives, and that every man should be free to marry as many women as he can support. He was arrested at the request of the local Shariah Court, but subsequently released, on the condition that he only keep four of his wives.

Not only did the ‘superpolygamist’ ignore this requirement, but he has since married other women as well. In total, he married 107 women so far, divorced 10 of them, which brings the total wife count to a whopping 97. And despite his ripe old age, Abubakar says he plans on marrying even more. “What I am doing is divine. It is an assignment and I will keep doing it till the end,” he told Nigerian  newspaper Vanguard.

Read More »

Congregates of Mount Zion General Assembly, a Christian church in Polokwane, South Africa’s Limpopo province, were left in shock last Sunday, after a woman lost her life during a failed miracle attempt by pastor Lethebo Rabalango.

The controversial South African pastor and founder of the Mount Zion General Assembly church was apparently teaching congregates about the demonstration of power and was trying to emphasize that if Jesus could walk on water, then he too could do anything with the power of faith. To get his point across, Rabalango invited a young woman from the crowd to take part in a real-life miracle. He asked her to lie down on the floor and then ordered his ushers to pick up a giant speaker and lay it on top of her body. Read More »

Thanks to zoologist Dr Lucy King, farmers in rural Africa no longer need to worry about elephants wrecking their fields. Through ‘The Elephants and Bees Project’, she introduced the concept of honey fences – a low cost, organic solution that employs beehives suspended several meters apart to keep pachyderms away. The fences are essentially gifts that keep on giving, because the farmers are also able to make an additional income from the honey.

King first hit upon the idea after she read that elephants actually avoid acacia trees – their favorite food – if they spot a beehive in the branches. She then spent several years conducting behavioral experiments, like filming elephants reacting to the sound of bees buzzing played through a loudspeaker. Using the data she gathered, she began to develop the honey fence system – she suspended a series of hives at ten-meter intervals from a single wire, threaded around wooden fence posts. To get into the field an elephant would have to touch either the wire or the hive, disturbing the bees and causing them to swarm out in buzzing cloud.

Read More »

In a bizarre turn of events, the second place winner at the Nairobi International Marathon last Sunday was arrested for blatant cheating. Julius Njogu apparently stayed hidden among the crowd for most of the 26-mile race before joining the other runners for about half a mile, on the last stretch and laying claim to the $7,000 prize money.  

Unfortunately for him, race officials caught on rather quickly – they noticed that he showed no signs of fatigue or sweat as he breezed passed the other runners to the finish line, despite having supposedly run 42 miles. The 28-year-old was spotted jogging effortlessly as he crossed fellow runner Shadrack Kiptoo to come in second. When they investigated the issue, they realised that he hadn’t run the race at all.

Read More »