Category: History – Political
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Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian civil war hero on the federal side, Statesman, and Head of the federal government as military general, 1976-79, and elected president, 1999-2007. Obasanjo, descendant of asylum seeker in aftermath of Ijebu-Ife onslaught against Owu, Adegboye, whose son, Ojopola arrived in the new Owu settlement in Abeokuta to give birth to, among others,…
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Frederick Lugard was the first Governor General of Nigeria, who in January 1, 1914 amalgamated the Northern and the Southern protectorates to form one country under the British empire. Lugard was born in 1858 of missionary parents in India, and trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in England. In 1894 Lugard visited Nigeria for…
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Victor Banjo, born in 1930, was a soldier who, caught in the middle of an ideological complexity during the Nigerian Civil War, was executed by separatist army in 1967. In 1953, Victor Banjo joined the Royal West African Frontier force, training in Teshi, Ghana, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, England, and then the Military College…
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George Sodeinde Sowemimo was the Chief Justice of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985, and judge for 32 years. Born in 1920, Sowmemimo grew up in the north, from Zaria to Kano where he attended Holy Trinity School. Moving down south, he went to C.M.S. Grammar School, Lagos, and worked briefly with the National Railway Corporation…
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Anti-Slavery and Aborigine Society was a group formed as a corrective against the imperfections of the Crown Colony systems. Lagos Auxiliary of this society, founded by Christopher Sapara Williams in 1905 was described by Gbadegesin in a 2006 doctoral thesis to the Emory University as an equitable opposition coalition that was characterized by extralocal engagement…
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Garveyism was the Pan-African philosophy of the Jamaican political leader, Marcus Garvey, in the early 20th Century, aimed at precipitating a global movement of economic empowerment. Garvey preached the unity of all blacks, claiming that liberty would come about only through the return of all Afro-Americans to their ancestral home. Although the Universal Negro Improvement…
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Joseph Odeleye Fadahunsi was born 1901 in Ilesha. As an Ijesha NCNC elder statesman, he replaced Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife as governor of the Western Region in 1 January 1963. His subsequent invitation of Ladoke Akintola to form a new government sparked violence that signaled the end of the Nigerian first republic. Fadahunsi…
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Harry Akande is a businessman and one time presidential aspirant born 1943 in Ibadan. As a child, Harry showed himself to be brilliant in academics and in sports. Being a staunch fan of the famous American singer, Harry Belafonte, Ayoade Akande took to the name ‘Harry,’ and is fondly called so. After the Olivet Heights…