Did you know who the first Luhya to own a bicycle was?

 He lived longest of all the Wanga kings

King Nabongo Mumia was born between 1849 and 1852 into the Abashitsetse Dynasty He was the first Luhya to own a bicycle and a motor car

King Nabongo Mumia

King Nabongo Mumia, born a prince between 1849 and 1852 into the Abashitsetse Dynasty became Paramount Chief and ruled the Wanga Kingdom for 67 years from 1882 to 1949 when he died, making it one of the longest reigns in African history.

 He lived longest of all the Wanga kings. Nabongo Mumia was also the first Luhya to own a bicycle and a motor car.

Jack Ma

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma who recently visited Kenya accompanied by scores of fellow dollar millionaire businesspersons, made his first investment in Kenya through his firm, DidiChuxing, in a partnership with Taxify.

 DidiChuxing is partly owned by Jack Ma’s Alibaba company and will compete against San Francisco-based rival, Uber.

Didi decimated Uber in China after a fierce price war that eventually saw it acquire Uber’s China operations in a mega-merger last year.

Didi has more than 400 million customers in 400 cities in China.

Nubians in Kibra

Nubians were recruited from Sudan as soldiers to serve the British colonial administration in Kenya, During their gallant service in the First and Second World Wars, one Colonel Brading, the Commanding Officer ‘B’ and ‘C’ Company 3rd Kings African Rifles in which the bulk of the Nubian soldiers served, asked the government to settle the Nubians in 1912 on 4,197.9 acres of land called Kibra Reserve.

 The land was systematically grabbed by various ethnic groups and even the Nairobi Municipality hived off part of it to build Woodley Estate, another by Langata Prison to build a quarry, another to accommodate Royal Nairobi Golf Club, the British Legion and lastly, houses flattened and shambas forcibly appropriated between 1948 and 1949 by the East Africa Railways and Harbours to make way for the Nairobi-Nakuru railway line.

Teachers

H.E. First Lady Margaret Wanjiru Kenyatta and H.E. Rachel Chebet Ruto are qualified Graduate Teachers.

Raila Odinga’s spouse Ida Betty Anyango Odinga, née Oyoo, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Education) and taught for two decades.

Good people, marry a teacher if you want to get anywhere fast.

Isiolo International Airport

The ultra-modern Isiolo International Airport cost Sh2.5 billion and is spread over 329.76 hectares at 3501 feet above sea level.

The 125,000 passenger annual capacity facility has a floor area of 5,000 square metre, complimented by nine check-in counters, a VIP lounge, restaurants, duty-free shops, banking facilities, forex bureaus, airline front offices and shops. Its car park can accommodate 200 cars.

Meanwhile, the runway is 1.4 km long with an apron measuring 150m by 75m long and 23m width that can handle 6 Code ‘C’ aircraft.

The porcupine

The porcupine is nocturnal (only operates at night) and is the third largest rodent in the world (Only the capybara and beaver outweigh these monsters).

And no, this prickly brethren doesn’t shoot it’s quills when facing danger as we have all a long been made to believe, but uses them as an aposematic strategy for self-defence and raises them as a shield of very painful spikes against attackers.

Samsung

In 1938, Lee Byung-Chull launched Samsung in South Korea as a grocery shop and in in 1940, due to tight competition in the grocery segment, Samsung abandoned selling groceries to producing and selling noodles.

 In 1950, Samsung abandoned noodles in favour of producing sugar. In 1954, they dumped sugar and started a woollen mill.

In 1956, Samsung abandoned the mill and started selling insurance and securities; 1960, threw caution to the wind and started producing TV sets, until 1980 when they switched again to producing telephone switch boards.

And when Lee died in 1987, Samsung split into four independent companies: department stores, chemicals & logistics, paper telecom and electronics.

After dabbling in real estate, semi-conductor facilities, they merged everything in 1993 to become the world’s largest producer of memory chips and took up cell phone manufacture. Now you know.

Ibrahim Babangida Bridge

The Ibrahim Babangida Bridge was opened in 1990 and is the longest of the three bridges connecting Lagos Island to Mainland Nigeria.

Built by PGH Joint Venture, it runs for 11.8 km. It was the longest in Africa until 1996, when the 20.5 km long 6th October Bridge in Cairo was completed.