Biographies & Cultural Icons of Nigeria
Life stories of Nigerian political leaders, monarchs, activists, writers, artists, and other influential historical figures.
Kalakuta Remembered, Forty Five Years After the 1977 Military Raid
February 18, 1977 stands as one of the most defining days in Nigeria’s modern cultural history. On that morning, Nigerian soldiers stormed the Kalakuta...
The 1984 Imprisonment of Fela Kuti
Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election delivered a moment many citizens once thought impossible. For the first time in the country’s history, an incumbent president conceded...
Prof Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin: Pioneer of Nigerian and African History
Prof Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin was one of Nigeria’s foremost historians, whose work helped shape how African history is studied and understood. Born in 1930...
Oba Funsho Adeolu: TV Icon to Traditional Ruler
Oba Funsho Adeolu, known across Nigeria as Chief Nicodemus Ologbenla Eleyinmi, was one of the most memorable figures in Nigerian television history. Best remembered...
Michael Imoudu: Father of Nigeria’s Labour Movement
Michael Athokhamien Imoudu was a Nigerian trade unionist and activist whose leadership during the era of British colonial rule laid the groundwork for organised...
Femi Bankole Osunla: The Photographer Who Framed Afrobeat History
Femi Bankole Osunla was a Nigerian photographer whose work preserved some of the most important visual records of Afrobeat, the genre pioneered by Fela...
Cyprian Ekwensi: Nigeria’s Master of Urban Storytelling
Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was born on 26 September 1921 in Minna, present-day Niger State, Nigeria, into an Igbo family originally from Nkwelle Ezunaka...
Captain Chinyere Kalu: Nigeria’s First Female Commercial Pilot
Captain Chinyere Onyenucheya Kalu is widely recognised as the first Nigerian woman to qualify as a commercial airline pilot. Her achievement, accomplished in 1981,...
Chief T.O.S. Benson: Nigeria’s First Minister of Information
Chief Theophilus Owolabi Shobowale Benson was born on 23 July 1917 in Ikorodu, Lagos into a prominent Yoruba family. He became one of Nigeria’s...
Ladipo Solanke: Champion of West African Student Activism
Ladipo Solanke, born around 1886 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, was a prominent Nigerian activist and organiser whose work shaped the lives of West...