Author: tope_litcaf


  • Abipa was the Alaafin who finally moved the capital of Oyo Empire from the Savannah called Oyo Igoho to its former location. Abipa had done this in keeping faith with his father, Ajiboyede, who initiated the plan. The story is told of how the nobles, and some influential subjects who were born in Oyo Igoho,…

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  • Oba Moro is a play by Duro Ladipo, built on desire for continuity. “Let us abandon this place of refuge,” cried the Yoruba refugees in this play derived from Samuel Johnson’s History of the Yorubas, ‘let us build our glorious city, Oyo Ajaka.” The play, was first performed on 17 March 1962, on the occasion of…

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  • Pygmy Sperm Whale, Kogia breviceps, name is derived from the milky-white substance found in the animal’s head named spermaceti oil due to its resemblance to semen. This oil was once very useful as fuel, industrial lubricant and cosmetic ingredient. Unlike the Dwarf cousin which lives over or near the edge of the continental shelf, the…

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  • Duro Ladipo was a playwright of international renown born in 1931 to a clergyman. Ladipo spent his childhood in Osogbo, acquiring primary and middle school education in a mission school. Through in-service training he qualified as a teacher in 1958; a considerable educational achievement in his time. Shortly after getting into trouble with his church…

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  • Ademuyiwa Haastrup was a flamboyant Lagos auctioneer and Local Methodist church preacher in Remo. Haastrup was an Ijesha prince with some maternal connections with Akarigbo Oyebajo. He was born to an Ifa priest in 1863 but was adopted as a child by Christians, hence his name, Joseph Pythagoras Haastrup. He later took a native name,…

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  • Abiola Ajimobi is a politician, born into a local political family in 16 December 1949 in Ibadan, about the time Awolowo’s Nigerian Tribune was established. His grandfather was an important Ibadan chief, and his uncle a Western Region Minister. His father too was a member of the House of Assembly. Ajimobi had his secondary education…

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  • Lagosians, as far as an old writer on the subject, Kunle Akinsemoyin is concerned, are the descendants of the first and early settlers on the islands of Eko (now Lagos), Iddo, including Ebute-Metta on the mainland, and the descendants of the founding fathers who laid the foundation of what has become the city of Lagos…

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  • Abiodun was the Alaafin of Oyo who finally ended the tyranny of Basorun Gaha. Abiodun, also known as Adegolu was a tall, handsome, slim man of very dark complexion. The wise king showed no visible resentment of the infamous Basorun Gaa’s ways and he paid him homage without wearying. The cup of the Basorun’s iniquities…

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  • Racism; the active assertion of supremacy based on race is not inherent among human beings. There was indeed no cause for one, as there was parity in achievement of the races for most of history. Arts of the early medieval times and beyond frequently feature black persons as leaders, and soldiers, even saints. The black…

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  • Ijemo Massacre was an incidence in Abeokuta in 1914, that led to the abrogation of the Treaty of 1893 in which the independence of the Egba kingdom had been asserted. This widely condemned killing of some 40 unarmed men, women and children at Ijemo was the subject of serious discussions in the West African papers,…

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