Category: History – General
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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…
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Royal Niger Company was the entity which served essentially as precursor for the Nigerian state; the mercantile establishment which evolved from British trading firms granted royal charters in West Africa by Queen Elizabeth, whose activities, commencing in 1662 was under the name “Company of Royal Adventures.” In 1662, this name was changed to the “Royal…
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World War I was the worldwide conflict in which Nigeria’s colonial overlord, Britain, formed part of a triad that constituted the Allied powers in its military campaign against the Central powers headed by Germany. Over sixteen million people died in this war that was started over the Austria-Hungarian ultimatum to the kingdom of Serbia on the…
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William Dappa Pepple was the king of Bonny, between 1835 and 1866, who called the Christian faith in 1864 to Bonny, thereby pioneering the Niger Delta pastorate of the Anglican Church. Born in 1817 in a long lineage of Bonny kings, in a dynasty that was started in the late 17th Century by Perekule, a…
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Ekiti people are subgroup of the Yoruba, historically occupying the Ekiti country, which was made up of 16 kingdoms- Otun, Ikole, Ado, Oye, Ijero, Ido, Ikere, Ise, Emure, Effon, Okemesi (traditionally Imesi-Igodo), Ara, Isan, Itaji, Obo, Akure, and Ogotun. In 1882- the Awujale of Ijebu made mention of being an ally of “the 16 kings…
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Ijaye; sub-group of Yoruba ethnicity, whose forebears migrated from the region around Old Oyo, which comprised the present-day Kwara State, to their present site in Abeokuta and Lagos. Ijaye of old Oyo was the base of Kurunmi, the famous Aare-Ona Kakanfo or Generalissimo of Yorubaland, who, despite his widely acknowledged military exploits against invading Fulanis…
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Orunmila was a philosopher, and major intellectual personae of the Yoruba Ifa literary corpus which deals with subjects as diverse as history, geography, religion, or music. Orunmila together with his sixteen disciples is credited with the authorship of most of the four thousand and more verses attached to the Odu Ifa, a record of the…
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JaJa of Opobo, full name; Jugbo Jubogha, was the charismatic king of Opobo in the Niger Delta who opposed inroad of British trade into the hinterland. JaJa, an Nkwerre man, was born c.1821 in Amaigbo village group, which later became part of the Orlu Division. For cutting his top teeth, an abnormal and sinister phenomenon…
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Ajobo was a leading Ibadan warrior of the late 19th Century whose failure to exercise caution in the use of his powers led to the lost of it. As a youth, Ajobo migrated to Ibadan from Ikire in c.1839, like many young men from other Yoruba towns who were atracted by the oppourtunity provided by…