Author: tope_litcaf
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National Theater, a Nigerian architectural monument, was launched in 1976 by the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo as a venue for the second Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), which was to hold in 1977. The building, standing at over 31 meters and covering an expansive land of 23,000 square meters, was designed after the…
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Adeyemo Alakija was born Placido Assumpcao in 1884. He changed his name to the original family name, Alakija in the year he was called to Bar in the London Inner Temple, 1913. This was possible because his family knew of their origin in Abeokuta. His father was one of the Yoruba Brazilian slaves who returned…
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Esugbayi, the Oba of Lagos was designated Eleko of Eko, meaning, “the owner of Lagos”. He was the first Lagos monarch to reinforce the title. Others may have abstained for the reason of the complex nature of the kingdom’s organogram which sees Idejo chiefs, rather than just the Oba as the primary land owners. This…
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Henry Carr was an educator and administrator, described as one of the most erudite scholars produced by Africa, a mathematician who corrected the world-famous textbook of Locke the trigonometrician. He was born August 15, 1863 in Lagos to Sierra Leonean emigrant of Yoruba extraction. Carr was educated at St. Paul’s School, Breadfruit and Olowogbowo Wesleyan…
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Aguda is the term used for Yoruba Brazilian returnees in 19th Century Lagos. Many of these people, also known as emancipados, or Amaros were captured from the interior in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and exported to Bahia in Brazil. The immigration of Amaros were concurrent with those of the Saros, Yorubas who…
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Adewale Ayuba, the popular fuji musician was born 1966 as last child into a close knit family, in Ikenne Remo Ogun State. Closing his eyes to the examples of his well-read older siblings, Ayuba prioritized music which he started at the age of seven. Soon, he got discovered by Mr. Sunday Olojuanu, a man who…
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Adetokunbo Lucas is a Nigerian medical doctor, recognized for his international role in fighting neglected tropical diseases, especially in follow-up to the so-called “Guinea worm cease-fire” during Sudan’s civil war in 1995. Ade Lucas was born 1930 in Lagos; living two years of his infancy in the vicarage after his father became in 1936, the…