Tunde Kelani; Nigerian cinematographer. Using the vehicle of films and home video movies with Ti Oluwa. Nile 1 & 2, Kosegbe, Ote ku I & 2 and others, Kelani’s Mainframe began a renaissance in the promotion of Yoruba culture at more elevated rather than a pedestrian level, usually informed by crass commercialisation evidenced In the…
ADETONA Sikiru Kayode, The Awujale Ogbagba II of Ijebuland. During the 1960s crisis in the Western region, Adetona expressed views which were adverse to the Obafemi Awolowo camp. A chief of his royal court, E.O. Okunnowo, had crossed path with former Premier and party leader Awolowo, and he, Adetona, had a personal relationship with Awolowo’s…
Ogunwande Abimbola; History professor, university administrator, and Ifa diviner born in the town of Oyo in 1936. Two years after his tenure as Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University Abimbola became Majority Leader of the Nigerian Senate. For two years, he served as Special Adviser on Cultural Affairs and Traditional Matters to President Obasanjo.…
Talking drum called Gangan was invented in Old Oyo Empire at an unknown date. It is mostly used in the Oba’s palace to praise-sing eminent chiefs who come visiting, primarily to extol the virtues of the Oba. When handled with dexterity the talking drum can mimic human voices. Gangan consists of a widely hollow and…
Itsekiri are a small ethnic group in southern Nigeria, numbering just over 30,000 in 1952. Due to the position of their homeland- western area of the Niger Delta and the estuary of the Benin River, the people in in the 18th century became wealthy as middlemen between European traders whose ships lay off the habour…
Apotheosis is the promotion of an individual to a godlike status. The term in Nigerian discourses is dominantly used in religion and in politics to denote respectively, the divinization of a hero, leader, or person acclaimed to possess spiritual power, and public office holder who enjoys large following in life and in death, hence having…
Patriarchy is a social system in which men wielded all powers and use it to their advantage. The issue of women subjection and oppression in Africa is a protracted contest and struggle on a continent almost patriarchal in structure and plagued by poverty and conflict. In most part of the world today, women are trying…
Eyo Honesty II was the king of Creek Town, one of the Southern Nigerian towns of the Efik people who presently constitute the chief population of Calabar. Eyo is remembered in history for his modernizing effort, and for being an instrument by which British rule became enacted in the Niger Delta. His name, Honesty had…
Dadakuada music traditionally from Kwara State, Nigeria, include varieties like Waka, Alagbe, and Pamupamu. Dadakuada music emerged from different groups of minstrels in the early 18th Century who made songs derived from eulolgy, ijala (ballad), incantation, invocation, and folklore. The music is an admixture of all folkloric genres which serve as imperatives on which the…