Nigerian Proverbs and Sayings

This page collects every saying in the archive recorded as coming from Nigeria: 63 proverbs, 77 quotes, 4 short stories. 9 of them carry a written explanation of what it means; the rest are being added over time.

The named voices here are Chinua Achebe (43), Wole Soyinka (18), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (6) and Elphinstone Dayrell (3). The proverbs are left unattributed, because a proverb belongs to the people who repeat it rather than to whoever first said it.

The subjects they return to most often are Leadership, Education, Art, Wisdom and Hard Work.

A few from this collection:

• A hunter with one arrow does not shoot with a careless aim.
• A bird that flies off the earth and lands on an anthill is still on the ground.
• Eneke the bird says that since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching.

See also all countries, every proverb in the archive, or browse by subject.