Category: History
-
West Africa Student Union is an organization established by British West African students in London in 1925 to foster West African nationalism and in the founders’ words; to combat the false and exaggerated views given to the world by strayed European travelers, anthropologists, missionaries, officials and film producers. WASU was founded on 7 August when…
-
Ladoke Akintola was the politician and the eighth Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland who in 26 March, 1957 moved his famous motion for Nigeria’s independence that was frustrated by gradualists who asked for independence in 1959. Ladoke, a baroquely marked face, deeply indigenous man with great command of Yoruba oration, was born 1910 in Ogbomoso.…
-
Basorun Gaha was the despotic General of the Old Oyo Empire who made and destroyed three successive Alaafins. Basorun Gaha’s inglorious career commenced in the days when Labisi was being prepared for the throne of Oyo. He killed the prince’s friends and silenced his supporters, thereby starting his own rule, which he surreptitiously did with…
-
Ajagbo was Alaafin of Oyo who ruled the longest. The length of his reign contrasted sharply with most of his close successors. Ajagbo’s love for martial planning led him to create a special office, the Aare Ona Kakanfo, to be occupied by the most accomplished soldier in the empire. He made his friend from Iwoye, Kokoro…
-
History of the Yorubas is a book of history by Samuel Johnson, covering the earliest times of Oduduwa to the beginning of the British protectorate. Although the writing of Yoruba history dates back to the late 19th Century and many Yoruba sub-groups also have their own oral histories and chronicles, Johnson’s account was naturally attended…
-
Oyo in pre-annexation times, have had its people organized into a complex, highly structured society, having rules and unwritten constitutions. Had the British met them in this state, they would have marveled on how this people, considered to have lived in the Dark Continent could have evolved a system so pragmatic. The truth lives one…
-
Oduduwa is the eponymous founder and ancestor of the Yoruba race. Both titles attributed to him, however, appear not to be literal. The most plausible representation of him is of a Prince installed by, or aligned with the Byzantine imperial powers, who fled to West Africa due to a major religious strife between Chalcedonian Catholics…