Category: History – Social
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Maja House, located at 2 Garber Square, was the residence of Mrs. Dr. Maja Akintola. This pink painted Brazilian style house is one of the better-preserved, now more conspicuous as a result of slum-clearance. The symmetry at the front elevation gives a special importance to the entrance, which is decorated by protruding pilasters. The vertical…
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Molada is an historical figure of Ijebu; the Awujale’s son who committed adultery with his father’s wife and was consequently banished from the town. Although the Awujale ruled him to be executed, the council members of the King’s court prevailed on him to order a less severe punishment. Molada was ruled not to settle near…
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Obadiah Hutchinson Williams was the founder of the Illiterates Office, which was the forerunner of the Nigerian modern judiciary. He was born in Oyo in 1860 and was educated at the in Abeokuta. Obadiah, a descendant of the Alaafin of Oyo leant carpentry but was appointed a Registrar of the court by commission and worn in…
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Ojude Oba is an annual celebration held on the third day of the Ed-El-Kabir festivity of Muslims in Ijebu Ode. It is one of the most popular events that take place in the life of the community, and it draws overwhelming crowds to Ijebu Ode. An account puts the origination of the festival in the…
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Richard Akinwande Savage was a vocational journalist and medical doctor. Born in 1874 to a prominent Lagos merchant Yoruba returnee from Sierra Leone. As a medical student, Savage served as an officer and then a delegate of the Edinburg University Afro-West Indian Literary Society, and editor of the University Hand Book for 1899 and the…
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Mohammed Shitta-Bey was a wealthy Moslem trader of the 19th Century credited alongside Dr. Blyden who was an educator, for the change in the religious demographics of Colonial Lagos. Shitta was himself baptized a Christian in Sierra Leone but he changed to the faith of his father who was an eminent Sierra Leonean Muslim in…
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Daniel Conrad Taiwo (alias Taiwo Olowo) was a 19th Century manufacturer born 1781 circa in Isheri. Taiwo, a son of Oluwole the Olofin of Isheri, came to Lagos in 1848 as an apprentice basket maker. He quickly learnt his trade and was able to establish his own business. Olowo’s success in the highly feudalistic Lagos…
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Taiwo Olowo Monument, along Broad Street Lagos Island, was made for Chief Daniel Conrad Taiwo (alias Taiwo Olowo) a son of Oluwole the Olofin of Isheri, who came to Lagos in 1848 as an apprentice basket maker and made fortune doing business. The building has a main entrance and many rooms opening to a central…
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The Great Depression was the deep economic crisis of the 1930s started in America after steep fall in stocks, in which many world countries participated owing to the maintenance of the gold standard of exchange. Hoarding of money followed the loss of confidence in the economic system, and general purchasing power declined. The effect of…
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Lagos History: One of the oldest references remotely made to Lagos was from a passerby, Duarte Pacheco Pereira who noted in 1485 that “there was no trade in the country nor anything from which one can make a profit”. The Portuguese maps that appeared around this time featured the Lagos lagoon but there was no…