In 2008, two years after Ebenezer Smith graduated from high school with no means to go on to university, he ventured into Ghana’s culinary industry hoping to become a world-renowned chef.

For years, life moved at a slower pace than he had envisioned. So last October, he quit his job as an Accra beach resort chef earning about 1,800 cedis (£88) a month to pursue a new dream: dislodging 27-year-old Nigerian chief Hilda Baci as the world record-holder for the longest cooking marathon.

Smith, a 40-year-old father of two, told the Guardian that watching Baci set the record in August last year “boosted my confidence”.

“When I witnessed [her marathon], I said I’m going to take this challenge and make my society, my community and my nation proud,” he said.

Baci’s 93-hour, 11-minute stint in August 2023 broke a record set four years before. Her well-publicised attempt was supported by celebrities and politicians in her home nation of 200 million people. It also garnered millions of social media impressions and slowed the Guinness World Records (GWR) website for days on end as thousands of people went online to check her progress.

Mark McKinley, director of Central Record Services at GWR, which released its 2025 edition this month to mark its 70th anniversary next year, said engagement reached historic levels. It was “in a way, a record for the Guinness World Records”, he said. “[It’s] the Hilda Baci effect … she made attempting a record accessible,” he added.

Regional record attempts have risen sharply in the last year and a half. Between 2013 and 2022 there were about 7,000 applications from west Africa to GWR, representing 1% of the global tally. Since 2023 roughly the same number of applications have been received, constituting about 8% of the global total.

Inthe 1990s, the Guinness Book of Records, as it was known then, was popular in middle-class west African households. Baci’s record helped reintroduce it to young adults in the age of TikTok.

The surge in attempts is also partly because achieving a record is seen as a shortcut to fame and career advancement in a region stewing in record unemployment. Although record-breakers are not paid, Baci gained a series of endorsement deals and a congratulatory message from Nigeria’s vice-president.

“It is a great platform for international recognition and it projects destinies,” said 34-year-old Accra-based actor Adu Safowaah, who is awaiting verification of her 130-hour speechathon in February.

The marathon genre has proven particularly popular: a Cameroonian blogger went temporarily blind during a wailing marathon; a Lagos masseuse collapsed in the middle of a massage endurance attempt; and a kissing marathon was banned by authorities in Ekiti in south-west Nigeria.

Nigeria and Ghana together account for 122 of the 139 applications in the cooking marathon category since Baci’s historic quest.

Philip Solomon, Dunsin Dubem and Gbenga Ezekiel, three Nigerian teenagers from the south-west town of Akure, are among those featured in the 2025 edition for setting skipping records. The trio represented their schools at a 2021 state championship and hope to wear Nigeria’s colours at the Olympics if the sport is approved for inclusion. “Today we hold six world records, and that can mean six gold medals,” said Dubem.

Baci says she feels fulfilled knowing her record has helped many others “pursue their dreams and validate their aspirations”.

“The difficulty involved in breaking records makes me proud of the community that has formed around these achievements,” she said.

In July, Smith called a press conference claiming to have cooked nonstop for 802 hours and 25 minutes, showing a certificate purportedly issued by GWR. On the sidelines, a local TV channel offered him a talkshow on dieting. His big break seemed to have finally come.

Except that Smith’s attempt was one of thousands to commence without official approval. His certificate had been designed using photos of those presented to Baci and Alan Fisher, the Japan-based Irish chef who now holds the cookathon record, as a template.

A few days later, Smith knelt to apologise in a video on Facebook after his claims were debunked. Then the police arrested him.

Since then, the chef says he’s faced “trauma and stigma” as no one is willing to hire him. But he has not ruled out trying to emulate Baci again. “I brought reproach to my nation and Guinness,” he said. “If I get a genuine way, I will bring glory to the nation to cancel out the shame and the bad name.”