Category: History
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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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Stephen Oluwole Awokoya; Educationist, who as minister was responsible for launching the Awolowo administration’s Universal Primary Education in the West. Awokoya contributed in various ways to the development of the physical sciences. He was a member of the 1934-36 set at the Yaba Higher College where he received his education alongside future parliamentarian, Adelabu, and…
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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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Charles Phillips was the 19th Century Head of the Church Missionary Society in Ondo, whose parents were Yoruba Sierra Leonean returnee. At Ijaiye Charles’s father, known by same name, was a church catechist. Charles Phillip, born in 1847 to Egba parents is remembered for his effort in negotiating a truce as an emissary of 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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Isaac Adaka Boro was a Minority rights activist and hero of the Nigerian Civil War on the side of the federal government, who paradoxically was himself a former secessionist, declaring in February 1966, an independent state of the Niger Delta People’s Republic. Boro was born in 1938 in the town of Oloibiri where oil will be…
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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…