Category: History


  • Gabaro was the Oba of Lagos installed in 1669 after his father, Oba Ado’s death. During his reign, he moved the government to the island in particular Isale Eko where the present palace, Iga Iduganran is today located. Gabaro is thought to be the first Oba to erect a building in the palace, but the…

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  • Adeyemo Alakija was born Placido Assumpcao in 1884. He changed his name to the original family name, Alakija in the year he was called to Bar in the London Inner Temple, 1913. This was possible because his family knew of their origin in Abeokuta. His father was one of the Yoruba Brazilian slaves who returned…

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  • Esugbayi, the Oba of Lagos was designated Eleko of Eko, meaning, “the owner of Lagos”. He was the first Lagos monarch to reinforce the title. Others may have abstained for the reason of the complex nature of the kingdom’s organogram which sees Idejo chiefs, rather than just the Oba as the primary land owners. This…

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  • Aguda is the term used for Yoruba Brazilian returnees in 19th Century Lagos. Many of these people, also known as emancipados, or Amaros were captured from the interior in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and exported to Bahia in Brazil. The immigration of Amaros were concurrent with those of the Saros, Yorubas who…

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  • Nazism was the German political system between 1933 and 1945 of extreme nationalism, propagated and supervised by totalitarian authority. In articulation of what would be Nazis tenet, Hitler had in his book, Mein Kampt, equated Africans with apes, effectively suggesting the possibility of their enslavement in the event of German victory in its aggression efforts…

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  • Egerton Shyngle was the politician who became first party president when in 1923, Herbert Macaulay and his friends formed the Nigeria National Democratic Party that was to dominate Lagos politics for the next fifteen years. Born 15 March 1862 in Barthurst, Gambia, Shyngle’s secondary education was at Freetown Grammar School. He also went to Fourah…

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  • Eric Moore was a prominent Lagos Lawyer of the early 20th Century, one of the first Nigerian member of the Colonial Legislative Council. Eric. O. Moore enrolled at the Supreme Court in 1903. He was head of the deputation sent from Lagos to consult with the Acting Governor Boyle during the intrigues that followed the…

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  • JC Omosanya Vaughan was a Nigerian nationalist at the beginning of the 20th Century. Vaughan was a social activist and also a Medical Practitioner. Born in 1893, to James, son to American former slave. James had left America with his brother in 1853 after their father’s death. These were times when those who knew where…

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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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  • Coker Commission was set up on 16 June 1962 by the Nigerian Federal Government of Tafawa Balewa to investigate Western Region’s six statutory corporations since 1 October 1954. In that year, the crisis within the regional ruling party caused by attempts by dissenters and the federal government to undermine its stronghold in the Western region…

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