Tag: Herbert Macaulay


  • Amodu Tijani’s case against the secretary to the government of Southern Nigeria was the watershed legal event in 1921 by which the ownership of Lagos lands was decided in favour of natives. Amodu Tijani, the chief Oluwa of Lagos was an Idejo chief whose influence extended to several villages and towns in the Lagos area…

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  • Alli Balogun was a Lagos politician and merchant in the 19th Century born in 1830 as Alli Makanjuola. Like his father, he was a slave dealer but he assumed a legal trade as supplier of local needs to European merchants upon the abolition of slavery in 1852. In his thirtieth year he had become rich…

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  • Akarigbo Oyebajo was the first educated ruler in Ijebu. Born in 1866, he ascended the throne in late 1891, just a year before the British conquest of Ijebu which brought him to prominence. The Lagos colonial governor, McCallum’s disdain of the proliferation of king titles in Akarigbo’s domain led to his being recognized as the…

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  • Adunni Oluwole was a Unitarist, and anti-independence activist. Adunni, a small, almost fragile woman, was one of Nigeria’s most colorful female leaders in the decade prior to independence. Adunni did not think Nigeria was ready to attain independence in 1956 when a date in that year was proposed,  and she worked to prolong the British stay. Adunni was…

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  • By a Native of Aneho Eko Akete 22 February, 1924. Marcus Garvey stands out prominently as one of the greatest Africans of the age. The scriptures saith, a little child shall lead them. Garvey is comparatively a child, a youngman of thirty-four, aspiring to unite 400 million Africans and to found an African Empire. That…

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  • Herbert Macaulay is the nationalist figure whose portrait adorn the Nigerian one-naira metal coin. Macaulay was the grandson of the equally notable Samuel Adjai Crowther whose influence was significant in the annexation of Lagos and in the missionary activities across the country. Herbert was also the son of the founder of Nigeria’s first secondary school,…

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