Colonial Nigeria
Explore Nigeria’s colonial era (c. 1861–1960), from the annexation of Lagos and the Royal Niger Company to the 1914 amalgamation and the road to independence. This category examines British administration, missionary education, commerce and railways, taxation and labor, cultural change and urban life, and the rise of nationalist movements, including women’s protests, unions, and political parties. Discover biographies, key events, and documents that reveal resistance, collaboration, and everyday experiences across Nigeria’s regions.
Colonial Borders and Nigeria’s Unfinished Nationhood
Nigeria’s unresolved nationhood debate is not only a memory from colonial rule. It remains visible in arguments over security, belonging, land, revenue, state creation,...
How British Rule Remade Yorubaland After the Civil Wars
By the time Britain expanded from Lagos into the Yoruba interior, Yorubaland had already been reshaped by decades of conflict. The old Oyo Empire...
Hausa Identity, Fulani Power, and the Politics of Naming in Northern Nigeria
For decades, the phrase “Hausa-Fulani” has been used in Nigerian politics, journalism, and public debate as a shorthand for the Muslim North. It is...
Iddo Island and the Awori Roots of Lagos
Long before Lagos became a colonial port, a federal capital, and later Nigeria’s largest commercial city, its older history was carried through settlement memory,...
From Ebute Ileke to Lekki, The Older Story Behind Lagos’ Coastal Power Corridor
Lekki today is known for estates, toll roads, ports and rapid expansion, but its story did not begin with modern development. Long before its...
Iba Kingdom: The Awori Royal Memory Behind the Modern Oniba
Iba Kingdom stands among the Awori Yoruba communities whose history forms part of the early settlement story of Lagos State. Its identity is tied...
The True Origins of Lagos, How Awori Settlement and Benin Power Built Eko Before Colonial Rule
Long before the name Lagos became widely known, the island at the centre of the modern city existed as part of a network of...
How the Sokoto Jihad Replaced Many Local Rulers with Emirs
In the early nineteenth century, one of the most important political changes in West African history took place in Hausaland. The transformation was not...
Eva Adelaja and the School That Opened New Doors for Girls in Bariga
In the history of education in Lagos, some names endure because they are tied not just to buildings, but to opportunities that changed lives....
She Took Yoruba Learning to Britain, Then Built a Girls’ School in Lagos, The Enduring Legacy of Eva Adelaja
The story begins with Miss E. A. Adebonojo, a Nigerian educator from Ode in Ijebu country, Yoruba land, Western Nigeria. In 1946, she appeared...