Category: History
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Israel Ransome Kuti was a pioneer educationist and union activist, born 30 April 1891 in Abeokuta. Israel was like his father before him, an Anglican priest. When he left the Lagos Grammar School, he became the first pupil to be enrolled at Abeokuta Grammar School in 1908. His education continued at Fourah Bay College from…
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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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Ogedepagbo War was the first recorded social disturbance that engulfed the Egba kingdom. The so-called Ogedepagbo Civil War occurred while the people still lived in villages within the old Egba territory encompassing present-day Akinmoorin near Oyo to Ebute Metta Lagos and Orile Oko near Remo Local Government of Ogun State. It happened when Ogedepagbo, a…
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Ojigi was the Alaafin elected to the seat of Osinyago rendered vacant by the latter’s rejection and suicide. His vanity was manifest in his expansionism, and he achieved great military success, expanding the Oyo empire into Dahomey and a bit northward to the Niger. This good man, however did not miss what has been the…
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Okanbi was the first son of Oduduwa who was the founder of Yoruba nation. Much is not attributed to him in history, and he had died, like his father, in Ile Ife. It is probable that Okanbi witnessed the great riot in Egypt (traditionally told to be Mecca) that led to the emigration of his…
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Ikoli-Akinsanya crisis was the internal party conflict that led to the demise of one of the earliest national political groups in Nigeria. The party never recovered from the crisis, which pitched its leaders against one another. While this internal party conflict is considered by some historians as the genesis of tribalism in Nigerian politics, it is…
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Adeniyi-Jones Curtis Crispin was a colonial era parliamentarian, nationalist and medical doctor who was an outspoken critic of the colonial government. Curtis Crispin Adeniyi-Jones was born at Waterloo in Freetown, Sierra Leone, of Yoruba parents of the Creole community in 1876. After a secondary education at Sierra Leone Grammar School, he went to the United…
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Ademuyewo Fidipote became the Awujale of Ijebu land with the death in 1852 of Anikilaya, who reigned during the conflict between Egba and Ijebu. Islam was brought to Ijebu Ode during the Fidipote’s reign and the Ijebu Muslim celebration, the Ojude Oba festival had originated from his presentation of a ram to his friend, Tunwatoba,…
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Epe is a Yoruba speaking town about 60 kilometers from Lagos, also a Local Government Area of Lagos State, with 294 rural and 24 semi-urban communities. At inception, while only a few families lived there, the town was called Oko Epe, meaning “the farm of black ants”. Today, Epe is squeezed in between the fast…