Mohammed Shitta-Bey was one of the most influential Muslim merchants and philanthropists in nineteenth-century Lagos. His life connected several worlds that were reshaping West Africa: the Liberated African communities of Sierra Leone, return migration to the Yoruba coast, the rapid commercial growth of colonial Lagos, long-distance trade along the Niger, Afro-Brazilian architecture and the expanding international networks of West African Islam.
His name survives most visibly through the Shitta-Bey Mosque on Lagos Island. Yet the mosque was only the most enduring expression of a much larger story. Shitta accumulated considerable wealth through commerce, became a leading figure within Lagos’s Muslim community, supported religious institutions in Lagos and Sierra Leone, and received recognition from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
His career also demonstrates the important role African merchants played in nineteenth-century regional commerce. Shitta built commercial networks of his own, invested in property, operated far beyond Lagos and possessed enough capital to become a significant financier.
More than a century after his death, his architectural legacy entered another difficult chapter. On 24 December 2025, a major fire at the Great Nigeria Insurance House on Lagos Island spread to neighbouring properties and severely damaged the historic Shitta-Bey Mosque. The destruction brought renewed attention to a building that has stood as a monument to the wealth, faith and international connections of Muslim Lagos since the nineteenth century.
From Waterloo to Badagry
Mohammed Shitta was born in Waterloo, Sierra Leone, around 1824, into a Muslim Liberated African family with origins in the Yoruba-speaking region around Badagry.
His family belonged to the larger population created by Britain’s suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. Africans liberated from intercepted slave ships were settled in Sierra Leone, where communities of Yoruba origin became an important part of the colony’s social, commercial and religious life.
Shitta’s father became an imam of the Muslim congregation at Fourah Bay. Mohammed therefore grew up within a family closely connected to Islamic leadership.
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In 1844, the family returned from Sierra Leone to the Yoruba coast and settled in Badagry. His father died in 1849, leaving the younger Shitta to establish his own place within the rapidly changing commercial world of the region.
By the early 1850s, Lagos was becoming increasingly attractive to African merchants. The town’s maritime position, growing community of Sierra Leonean returnees and expanding connections with European and African markets made it a natural commercial centre.
By 1853, Shitta had moved to Lagos with members of his family and began building the career that would eventually make him one of the city’s most prominent Muslim merchants.
Mohammed Shitta-Bey Builds a Commercial Empire
Shitta began his career within a commercial environment in which African traders worked with British and other European firms, but his business interests gradually became extensive and increasingly independent.
He participated in the kola trade and dealt in commodities that included cloth, hides, ivory, egusi, gum copal, beads, potash and other goods whose importance varied according to market and period.
His operations eventually extended far beyond Lagos.
By the 1860s, Shitta was trading towards the Niger and maintaining commercial connections with Sierra Leone. He developed trading arrangements that linked Lagos with the Niger Delta and the interior, while members of his family helped manage parts of his business.
One of the most significant elements of his commercial expansion was his establishment of a trading factory at Egga on the Niger. He also operated a steamer connecting his inland commercial activities with the Niger Delta.
Caravan routes extended his commercial reach towards the Bida Emirate, further connecting his Lagos operations with inland West African markets.
These activities placed Shitta within the class of African entrepreneurs who prospered during the commercial transition that followed the decline of the Atlantic slave trade. Trade in agricultural products, manufactured goods and other commodities created new opportunities, and merchants such as Shitta became important participants in the changing economy.
His accumulation of property in Lagos provided another foundation for his wealth. He acquired land from the 1850s onwards and continued to increase his property holdings during subsequent decades.
By the 1880s, his financial capacity was remarkable.
In 1884, Shitta lent the French commercial firm Fabre & Cie £7,200, an exceptionally large amount in nineteenth-century Lagos. The transaction demonstrated the scale of his wealth and his transition from merchant to financier.
He ceased direct Niger trading in 1885 and had effectively closed his principal trading operations by 1889, although his commercial influence did not disappear.
The Meaning of Olowo Pupa
Shitta became popularly known as Olowo Pupa, a Yoruba sobriquet closely associated with his extraordinary wealth.
The expression can be understood as approximately “owner of yellow or gold money.”
At a time when cowrie shells remained widely used as currency in Yorubaland, Shitta was distinguished by his possession of wealth in gold coin. The name reflected the unusual monetary form and visibility of his fortune.
The nickname captures an important aspect of Shitta’s place in nineteenth-century Lagos. His wealth represented a new form of commercial power emerging from Atlantic and inland trading networks.
Wealth Turned Into Religious Leadership
Shitta did not restrict his fortune to private business and property.
He became a major benefactor of Muslim communities and Islamic institutions. His philanthropy extended beyond Lagos to other communities with which he maintained family, religious and commercial relationships.
During the 1870s, he played an important role in supporting the rebuilding of the Lagos Central Mosque. He also contributed financially to Muslim institutions in Sierra Leone, including mosque projects in Freetown.
His wealth, philanthropy and standing within the Muslim population helped secure his position as Seriki Musulumi, an important secular leadership title within the Lagos Muslim community.
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The title reflected a form of authority that was becoming increasingly significant in colonial Lagos. Shitta’s status rested not simply on traditional royal structures but on commercial wealth, philanthropy, community support and connections extending beyond Lagos.
This growing influence occasionally brought the new forms of authority represented by wealthy merchants into contact with the older political structures centred on the Lagos monarchy.
Yet Shitta remained deeply embedded in the city’s civic and political world.
The Shitta-Bey Mosque and Afro-Brazilian Lagos
The greatest architectural expression of Shitta’s philanthropy was the mosque that eventually carried his name.
Construction of the Shitta-Bey Mosque took place during the early 1890s, with the building emerging as one of the most important examples of Afro-Brazilian Islamic architecture in Lagos.
The Afro-Brazilian architectural tradition had developed partly through formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants who returned to West Africa from Brazil. Known in Lagos as Aguda, many brought specialised building techniques and decorative styles that left a lasting mark on the city’s churches, mosques, houses and public buildings.
João Batista da Costa is commonly identified as the principal architect or master builder associated with the Shitta-Bey Mosque. The artisans Martin and Porphyrio have also been linked with its construction.
The building combined Islamic religious purpose with architectural methods reflecting the cosmopolitan character of nineteenth-century Lagos.
Its scale was significant. This was not merely a neighbourhood place of worship. The mosque visibly announced the presence, prosperity and permanence of Lagos’s Muslim community in a colonial city where Christian missions, European merchants and the colonial administration were also creating increasingly monumental buildings.
The Historic Opening of 4 July 1894
The Shitta-Bey Mosque was formally inaugurated on 4 July 1894.
The ceremony attracted leading figures from government, commerce and religion and became an event of international significance.
Among those present was Sir Gilbert Thomas Carter, Governor of Lagos. The gathering also included prominent members of Lagos society and representatives of Muslim communities.
One of the most significant visitors was Abdullah Quilliam, president of the Liverpool Muslim Association. Quilliam attended as a representative of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, one of the most powerful Muslim rulers of the period.
At the ceremony, Shitta received the Order of the Medjidie, Third Class, and the honorific title Bey on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan.
From that moment, Mohammed Shitta became widely known as Mohammed Shitta-Bey.
The honour represented considerably more than personal prestige. It connected the Muslim community of Lagos with a wider Islamic world stretching beyond West Africa and the British Empire.
For Lagos Muslims, the presence of an Ottoman representative at the inauguration of their mosque was a striking form of international recognition.
Shitta-Bey and the 1894 Muslim Petition
The events surrounding the mosque’s opening also coincided with an important moment in the political history of Lagos Muslims.
Only days after the inauguration, Muslim leaders presented a petition to the colonial administration. The document, received on 10 July 1894, carried the names of Mohammed Shitta-Bey and other prominent members of the Muslim community.
The petition sought greater recognition of Muslim law and institutions within the colonial legal system.
Its wider significance lies in the organised political engagement it represented. Lagos Muslims were negotiating their position within British colonial structures while seeking to preserve religious practices and obtain institutional recognition.
Shitta-Bey was therefore more than a wealthy donor. His position placed him within a broader movement of Muslim civic organisation and political representation.
Death and an Enduring Legacy
Mohammed Shitta-Bey died in Lagos on 4 July 1895, one year after the formal inauguration of the mosque that became his most visible monument.
News of his death travelled through the interconnected West African Muslim communities with which he had maintained relationships.
His legacy survived through his family, his philanthropy, the institutions he supported and, above all, the mosque bearing his name.
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He had lived during a period before the creation of Nigeria as a single colonial entity. The amalgamation that produced colonial Nigeria would not occur until 1914.
Shitta-Bey was a Sierra Leone-born Yoruba and Saro Muslim merchant based in Lagos, whose commercial and religious activities became an important part of Nigerian history.
The 2025 Fire and the Survival of the Shitta-Bey Mosque
On 24 December 2025, fire engulfed the Great Nigeria Insurance House on Lagos Island and spread through the densely built commercial district.
The nearby Shitta-Bey Mosque suffered severe damage.
The fire destroyed major parts of the building, including its roof, ceiling, doors, windows and fittings. Substantial brick walls, floors and other structural sections survived.
Built-environment professionals called for careful handling of the damaged surrounding structures to prevent additional harm to the mosque.
Muslim organisations and Lagos community leaders subsequently appealed to the Lagos State Government for assistance in preserving and restoring the historic building.
The destruction added a new chapter to the history of a structure already associated with commerce, religion, migration, architecture and international diplomacy.
Conclusion
Mohammed Shitta-Bey’s importance lies in the remarkable combination of worlds represented by his life.
Born in Sierra Leone into a Liberated African Muslim family, he returned to the Yoruba coast, settled in Lagos and built commercial networks connecting Atlantic ports with the Niger and inland markets. His fortune allowed him to become a property owner, financier and philanthropist of exceptional influence.
He transformed wealth into social authority. He supported mosques, helped strengthen Muslim institutions, became Seriki Musulumi and received international recognition from the Ottoman Sultan.
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The Shitta-Bey Mosque embodied that achievement in brick, stucco, timber and tile. Its Afro-Brazilian architecture represented the cultural diversity of Lagos, while its 1894 inauguration demonstrated the growing visibility of the city’s Muslims within both colonial society and the wider Islamic world.
The damage inflicted on the mosque in December 2025 has made the preservation of Shitta-Bey’s legacy an urgent heritage question. What survives is more than an old religious building. It is a surviving monument to the African merchants, migrants, craftsmen and religious communities who helped create modern Lagos.
Author’s Note
Mohammed Shitta-Bey’s life reveals how nineteenth-century Lagos was shaped not only by colonial officials and European firms but also by African merchants whose wealth, mobility and social networks crossed political and cultural boundaries. His journey from Sierra Leone to Badagry, Lagos and the Niger illustrates the influence of Liberated African migration, indigenous enterprise and Islam on the development of the city. The mosque that bears his name remains the clearest physical expression of that history, linking commerce, faith, Afro-Brazilian craftsmanship and international Muslim connections in a single monument.
References
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THISDAY. “Blazing Standards Highlight Resilience, Safety Concerns on Lagos Island.” 14 January 2026.
