In 2019, Alma Asinobi, a Nigerian postgraduate architecture student, gave herself an ambitious goal after obtaining her first passport: to visit up to 16 countries every year.
Then Covid-19 triggered a global lockdown, curtailing her dreams. Since restrictions were lifted, she has visited more than 30 countries and founded a travel agency, Kaijego.
On 15 March, the 26-year-old will attempt to fulfil another ambition: breaking the Guinness world record for the shortest time traversing all seven continents.
“It is the most ‘do it afraid’ thing I’ve done in my life,” she said.
If she succeeds, she will join a string of freshly minted record-holders in west Africa, where a new generation is passionately embracing breaking records. Since 2023, there have been more than 7,000 applications from the region’s 16 countries, according to Nicholas Brookes, the marketing director at Guinness World Records (GWR).
Asinobi, who travelled to other countries to obtain some of the 10 visas needed for the challenge, wants to highlight the difficulties posed by travelling with a “low-mobility” passport. On the 2025 Henley Passport Index, which ranks 199 countries by travel freedoms, Nigeria is tied in 88th place with Ethiopia and Myanmar.
Nigerian travellers routinely complain of being pulled out of immigration queues or not being allowed to board flights for mundane reasons at border controls in Europe, North America and even in Africa.
“My dreams will not be limited by the colour of my skin or the colour of my passport,” Asinobi said.
In September 2023, officials in Egypt kept her from proceeding to Jordan and Qatar for an hour, claiming that due to an airline policy she had to show a return ticket to Nigeria.
“When people say ‘it’s the policy’, they expect that you just keep quiet,” said Asinobi, whose checked-in luggage on that occasion was sent to another city and never recovered. “In two minutes, the matter was resolved automatically when I said they had to show me where that policy was.”
GWR rules require her to step foot on all seven continents by briefly leaving the airports she will fly between, and to document her journey with evidence at landmarks. Asinobi’s journey will start in Antarctica – where she is looking forward to seeing penguins – and end in Australia.
“I’m starting at the most unpredictable point, which makes the most sense because it’s when the wheels take off that the timer starts,” she said. “It’s up to me, the weather, God, so many different things. I just have to take one step at a time and ensure that I’m going at maximum speed. I’m obeying all the rules and I’m staying on track until I get to Australia.”
For months, Asinobi had been preparing to break the 2023 record of 73 hours. But on Thursday evening she discovered that an American national, Johnny Buckingham, had been certified as the new record holder with a time of 64 hours, travelled in February.
On Friday morning she posted on X: “Am I crazy enough to challenge a US Airforce veteran to break a mission-planning record with barely a week to plan? YES.”
Asinobi hopes to break another record – the most signatures on a piece of travel memorabilia – by asking thousands of people to sign a Nigerian flag she is travelling with at a party in Lagos on her return.
Fellow Nigerians have rallied to her cause. “This here is bravery and I salute this,” said Fiyinfoluwa Akinsiku, a Worcestershire-based doctor who circled the world with a Nigerian passport in nine years, including a 2019 trip to Antarctica. “Can’t wait to welcome you to the elite club of less than 1% of the world’s population to travel to all seven continents.”
Source: theguardian.com
