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Guinness World Records (GWR) is encouraging Africans to follow in the footsteps of Nigerian record-breakers.
They do, however, underline the significance of registering their attempts ahead of time and following the guidelines.
Following GWR’s acknowledgement of chef Hilda Baci’s outstanding four-day cook-a-thon in May, Nigeria saw a boom in record-breaking endeavors.
The organization has now measured the extent of this trend.
Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of GWR, told BBC Focus on Africa that his organization has received 1,572 applications for record attempts from Nigerians since Chef Hilda made headlines.
People have been crying nonstop, massaging nonstop, and frying massive numbers of snails, among other things, in order to gain attention.
“I really like it when people are passionate about record-breaking,” Mr Glenday said.
“We definitely want to see more people from Africa generally setting records – it’s a good thing.”
But he added that GWR wants to be notified first so they can assess the record attempt and see if it is measurable and establish the rules.
Mr Glenday said 95% of record attempts get rejected.
