Category: History – General

  • Landuji Oshodi

    Landuji Oshodi, known as Oshodi Tapa, was a powerful chief and war minister of King Kosoko of Lagos. Oshodi Tapa was born 1780 to a Nupe royal family, though he was recorded by some colonial sources to be of Egba origin apparently due to his early Yorubanization. There has also been an account that Oshodi…

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  • Augustus Otonba-Payne

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    Augustus Otonba-Payne was a key figure in Lagos Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria of England. Otonba Payne was born 1839 in Sierra Leone. His father was captured from Ijebu Ode during one of the raids in which individuals were sold to slavery, but was soon rescued by the British anti-slavery squadron. Payne was educated…

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  • Arugba-Ifa

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    Arugba-Ifa was the mother of Onigobi, the Alaafin and one of the several wives of Oluaso, whose reign was among the most successful in Oyo Empire. She was instrumental in the introduction of Ifa worship in the empire, but her aim for this, which was to secure a peaceful reign for her son, like that of…

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  • Ashipa

    Ashipa whose leadership lasted between the years 1600 and 1630 is regarded as the founder of the Lagos dynasty. He is believed by some to be a son of Oba Overami II of Benin but others assert he was an Ijebu from Ibefun. Ashipa by this account had achieved prominence with his noble acts of…

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  • Amuniwaiye

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    Amuniwaiye was the Oyo king, appearing to be he only good Alaafin after many short despotic reigns. The hope of his people in him however did not take long before it was dashed. Amuniwaiye, though a graceful king, lacked the strength to preserve his honor when the secret presence of another man’s wife was entrusted…

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  • Losii Osokale

    Losii Osokale was the Egba chief from Ake, commissioned by Maye, the head of the Oyo-Ijebu-Ife coalition that subdued the Egba people prior to their migration to Abeokuta, to determine the dexterity of Egba’s intention to find a new settlement after the alienation of their villages. Losii was to do this by splitting and casting the…

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  • Alex Taylor E.J.

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    Alex Taylor was a Lagos lawyer, cheered in his lifetime as the “cork of the Nigerian Bar”. Alex Taylor was born 13 April 1876 and had his elementary education at Port Novo, proceeding to Lagos to study at Wesleyan Boys High School before he was sent by his parents to C.M.S. school in Sierra Leone…

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  • Gbadebo I

    Gbadebo I, original name, Tegumada Ademola was the sixth Alake of Egba land who ruled from 1892 to 1920. Alake Gbadebo was born in 1854. His father, Okukenu, was the first Alake after the Egba migration to Abeokuta. Gbadebo’s sovereignty was interrupted in 1914 with the termination of the Egba Unity Government, which educated elites…

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  • Akarigbo Oyebajo

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    Akarigbo Oyebajo was the first educated ruler in Ijebu. Born in 1866, he ascended the throne in late 1891, just a year before the British conquest of Ijebu which brought him to prominence. The Lagos colonial governor, McCallum’s disdain of the proliferation of king titles in Akarigbo’s domain led to his being recognized as the…

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  • Ajisafe Kayode Ajayi

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    Ajisafe Kayode Ajayi was an historian and poet born in 1875 as Emmanuel Olympus Moore. The patriotic zeal and cultural renaissance in him prompted the change of his name to a fully African one in 1921. A.K. Ajisafe is the author of The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People published in 1924. As one…

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