Category: Literature
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Equiano Olaudah, abolitionist, born 1745, was the Ibo, Nigerian-born author of an autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or; Sustarus Vassa, The African, which was purposed after showing the “enormous cruelties practiced on his fabled brethren, and to strengthen the prevailing sentiment against the trafficking of humans.” Equiano was captured with…
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Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa; popularly called D. O. Fagunwa; Nigerian novelist of the Yoruba genre. With the publication of Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole in 1938, Fagunwa initiated the art of creative writing in Yoruba-language, which quickly generated a tradition within Nigeria and beyond the language. His other novels include Igbo Olodumare (1949), Ireke Onibudo (1949), Irinkerindo…
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Orunmila was a philosopher, and major intellectual personae of the Yoruba Ifa literary corpus which deals with subjects as diverse as history, geography, religion, or music. Orunmila together with his sixteen disciples is credited with the authorship of most of the four thousand and more verses attached to the Odu Ifa, a record of the…
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Atlantis is the fictional ancient civilization that became submerged under the ocean in the Greek philosopher, Plato’s dialogue, the “Timaeus” and the “Critias,” written about 330 B.C. Although the movement of the earth’s lithosphere, as described in the plate tectonic theory precludes the possibility of a lost continent in the recent geological past, Leo Frobenius,…
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Intelligence Report in colonial Nigeria was a document outlining the history and the administrative culture of the people as constructed from oral traditions and in some cases, other trusted written accounts. The main objective of the Intelligence Report was to show how far the executive and judicial practice is in conformity with the indigenous institutions,…
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Jacob Sogboyega Odulate, known as ‘The Blessed Jacob’, inventor and essayist, was born 1884 in Ikorodu. As a pharmacist of informal learning and a man of quick wit, Odulate soon achieved fame for the medicine, Alabukun, which he manufactured. As a fourteen year old, he had left his father’s polygamous house at Ikorodu for Abeokuta…
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ADEMOLA Kofoworola, educationist and children books author, known later in life as Lady Ademola, being wife of Adetokunbo Ademola, the first indigenous Chief Justice of Nigeria. Kofoworola was an early 20th Century symbol of educated elite, born 1914 to a lawyer father, Eric Moore, who was a member of the Colonial Legislative Council and who…
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Latunde Odeku, physician and poet,who was one of Nigeria’s most distinguished medical scholars, was born in 29 June 1927 in Awe, near Oyo. He schooled at Methodist Boys’ High School in Lagos from 1940-46. He was a probational officer for one year at the Nigeria Customs and Exercise Department from where he joined the Howard…
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Ajisafe Kayode Ajayi was an historian and poet born in 1875 as Emmanuel Olympus Moore. The patriotic zeal and cultural renaissance in him prompted the change of his name to a fully African one in 1921. A.K. Ajisafe is the author of The Laws and Customs of the Yoruba People published in 1924. As one…