Efunsetan Aniwura: Yoruba's Most Powerful Woman That Ever Lived?
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The story of Efunsetan Aniwura is perhaps one of the most motivating thrillers in Yoruba political history.
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The story of Efunsetan Aniwura is perhaps one of the most motivating thrillers in Yoruba political history. It captivates, in the most astounding manner, the place of women in Yoruba political history. But all along, the story of Efunsetan had been written and foretold by her
tormentors and painted grimly by mostly chauvinistic men.
It must be understood the context of Efunsetan’s coming into global fame, at least at this time, the World was defined as the circumference within which local people operated within a phenomenon.
The 1700s up to 1900
were centuries of great wars and arms build-up in the vast Yoruba country of old. It was a period of great revolutions and social upheavals across the Yoruba country. It saw the massive production of weapons and the importation of military hardwares
by Yoruba leaders, from as far as Hambourg in Germany.
I visited the Ogedengbe of Ilesa few months ago and was thrilled by the amazing exploits of Ogedengbe, the war General who led the Ekitiparapo war and who by 1860s was importing military weapons from
Europe in the prosecution of war.
To show the grandeur of the Yoruba nation, around 1880, it was reported that the then King of England had invited Ogedengbe for a state visit. England marveled at the military tactics of Ogedengbe, his command structure, his Spartan lifestyle,
his mysticism and above all, his science of war which he largely derived from the painstaking study of the movement and behavior of animals in moments of ferocious encounters with death or engagement with trembling. It was at this period that a bomb was invented at Okemesi,
which turned around the fortunes soldiers of Ekitiparapo war led by Ogedengbe. Contrary to widespread assumptions, the word KIRIJI actually emanated from the sound of the new weapon produced at Okemesi Ekiti. General Ogedengbe, who was in command of about 100,000 soldiers, had
declined the request for a state visit to England, saying that he was too busy with state matters. In Ilesa, during my visit, I saw the picture of the then King of England which the later had sent to Ogedengbe as a mark of respect and honour.
Back to the main topic.
The story of Efunsetan Aniwura is intriguing. Her date of birth remains uncertain, but she must have been born around 1790s or around that period. Yoruba epic films and folklores portray Efunsetan as a very vicious woman, filled with prejudice, a woman who died in tragic
circumstances. But there are hidden thrills and heroic feat that those who wrote his history continue to undermine. There is nothing as perplexing as having the story of a great woman being relayed by men, in a society credited for not giving women any chance in socio-political
affairs, especially in the primordial times, where women were seen as objects consigned to the kitchen and on the mat top. It is to the glory of Moremi, that her story definitely ignited passion in subsequent Yoruba women, one of which was Efunsetan Aniwura.
This woman of substance has been consistently portrayed as a villain who ran a Gestapo of sorrow and blood, a blood-sucker who beheaded people’s head at will. No. We must deconstruct the narrative that veiled real stories under the cover of the superiority of men over the
distinction of some brave women in our troubled history. Efunsetan was the son of an Egba farmer, Ogunrin, a native of Egba Oke-Ona. She rose to become the Iyalode of Ibadan. She was the first woman to set up a flourishing agrarian economy that employed no fewer than 2000 men
and women. Around 1850, worried by the spread of war and combat in the Yoruba country, she introduced infantry military training into the midst of her workers. She was said to have had her own military training in urban and guerrilla warfare after which she requested that the
same training be impacted on her slaves, about 2000 of them.
The workers mainly worked in the vast farmland. They produced cash crops, cotton, groundnuts, maize and beef. She was said to be in possession of a vast dairy farm that could feed the entire Yoruba country and beyond.
She traded up to Ghana and the Hausa country and even exported her produce to Europe. In her book, A History of the Yoruba ,Prof Banji Akintoye wrote about Efunsetan who she described as a rich “woman trader” that ‘had more than 2000 workers employed on her farms.”
This was at a time the industrial revolution was gaining strength in Europe and agriculture had become the most industrious enterprise in Yorubaland, being one of the service points for European products.
David Hinderer, a missionary who wanted to erect a Church in Ibadan
could not source human labour because all the men and women were engaged in large scale farming. The Generals of the Yoruba Army had also taken to farming to beat famine as a direct consequence of war. Hinderer wrote of his travel to Ibadan in 1853 with a caravan of traders and
carriers “consisting of not less than 4000 people.” Prof Akintoye wrote “It is not unlikely that Efunsetan was the richest person in the whole of the Yoruba interior in about the late 1870s.” Efunsetan had her own pains and anguish.
She had no child after several years of marriage. Unfortunately, her only daughter died in 1860 during child birth. She also adopted a son, Kumuyilo. Now, having lost her only daughter, she went into recluse and became suspicious of life and living. She even became an atheist,
ignoring all the gods wondering why she should lose her only daughter.
She may have been pushed to some form of extremism. She ordered that no one among her 2000 workers must marry or have sex within and non of the girls must conceive. It came that one of the workers broke the
law. She ordered that the woman be executed. No doubt that she carried out outrageous order of execution, but this was nothing compared with her heroic contributions to the economy of the Yoruba nation. Due to this act, the Aare ordered that she be brought to justice. This was
just the proverbial hawk that was looking for every opportunity to clawlift the chicken.
It is believed that her persecutors merely waited for her to carry out a dastardly act as an opportunity to seek revenge against her perceived emergence as a strong and influential woman,
whose mutual rival was Madam Tinubu of Lagos who was also her friend. It was at a time her own army had become a threat to the fiery army of Latoosa. How could a woman raise such a vast array of armed soldiers? There are two varying accounts of her death. One claimed Aare Latosa
led a strong infantry army to lay siege on her house and instead of being overpowered, she committed suicide by drinking the Hemlock.
At this period, her army had been divided and the loyalty fractured due to the execution of some of the 2000 workers for acts inimical to
her authority. The other story said Kumuyilo was bribed by Latoosa to poison her but that the attack on her was carried out in the night by two of her slaves who sneaked into her apartment through the ceiling and clubbed her. There were events that indicated that the Ibadan
chiefs were unhappy with the way Efunsetan was brought on her knees. Infact, with Latoosa there was a meeting on 8th of July when the Egba leaders came to Ibadan requesting for a Commission of Inquiry on the murder of Efunsetan.
The two slaves were subsequently brought before
the Ibadan traditional court on 10th of July 1874. They were impaled right at the Basorun market. Efunsetan has been painted in forbidding pictures through Yoruba history. It is time to deconstruct and give her due honour as a heroine. At death, Efunsetan’s property was declared
the property of the Yoruba country. she was burial with full military honours in Ibadan after her death
History: Thomas Fuller, Unbelievable Slave With Impeccable Mathematics Skills
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An African sold into slavery in 1724 at the age of 14, was sometimes known as the “Virginia Calculator”
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Born somewhere between the ”Slave Coast” of West Africa, present-day Liberia, and the Kingdom of Dahomey, now Benin, Thomas Fuller, became famed as the ”Virginia Calculator”.
Thomas Fuller was taken away from his birth country during the scramble for slaves, sold as a slave
and was sent off to Colonial America in 1724 at age 14.
Despite not being able to read or write, the Virginia Calculator was specially gifted with the ability to give accurate and speedy calculation and for many years, impressed the colonizers.
Christened Adekunle Adeyanju, this 44-years old man from Offa, Kwara State is no stranger to most people who are familiar with trends and happenings around the world in the early 2020s.
What stood out in his already impressive victory over seeming stretches that
stand side-by-side with impossibilities is his ride from London to Lagos. A ride he undertook, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Ikoyi Metro, to raise funds for the outright alienation of all things related to polio.
Adubi war of 1918: The devastating British-Abeokuta war (Ogun Adubi)
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More than thirty thousand (30,000) Egba natives went to war against the colonial government officials
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The Adubi war, also known as Ogun Adubi or the Egba Uprising, was a war that broke out between June and August 1918 as a result of the taxation system that was introduced in Abeokuta by the British colonial government.
Direct taxes were introduced by the colonial government
along with existing forced labour obligations and fees which culminated in the revolts by the Egbas. As of June 7 1918, the British government had already arrested 70 Egba chiefs and issued a decree that all rioters should lay down their arms, pay the taxes and
The Richest “Babalawo/Ifa Priest” With High Fashion-Sense in the world - Babalorisa Paulo Ty Omulu II
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Babalorisa Paulo Ty Omulu II popularly called Baba Paulo
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Generally people say there is no rich babalawo in the world, they are struggling themselves living in an old ugly shrine and looking unkept, their client looks more wealthy than the babalawos
But they promise good fortune, riches that they themselves do not possess.
But in this case, this babalawo is totally different from the rest.
For those who do not know who a babalawo is, a babalawo is a Nigeria native doctor, juju master, witch doctor, voodoo master etc
The richest babalawo in the world happens to be a Yoruba fine juju doctor who is
Many people have forgotten, but parents, relatives of victims of the Ikeja Cantonment Bomb blasts can never forget the trauma, pains and anguish that greeted them when they lost loved ones. It was January 27, 2002 when the quiet and serene ambience was rudely shattered,
with heavy detonations from the military armoury in Ikeja. Bombs were flying everywhere, there was pandemonium, residents of Ikeja, Oshodi, Isolo and Ejigbo ran helter and skelter to flee the unknown, but over 1,000 met their waterloo.
Have you ever wondered how some persons are described as famous while others infamous? It is simply a matter of what they are to be remembered for. In the history of infamy, the name Babatunde Folorunsho goes down in Nigerian history as one of the leading names if not the number
one in notoriety In the 1970s.
The name Babatunde Folorunsho seems nice and pleasant to the ear, but its bearer in history was actually a daylight terror and a nightmare to Nigerians in the early 1970s.
Babatunde Folorunsho was a chronic armed robber and a hardened criminal