Category: Culture
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Aoole Arogangan was the Alaafin after Abiodun, who was a cousin. Aole Arogangan ruled for seven years. He was unpopular mostly because he compared terribly with his immediate predecessor. Aole, as Alaafin, was petty and he showed no particular ambition to be a good king. His suppressed malice and weakness combined to put an end…
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Afonja was the Great grandson of Laderin, founder of Ilorin town. Afonja was the most influential man in old Ilorin and he was responsible for the revolution that unbundled Oyo Empire. His actions also led to the lost of Ilorin town to foreign dominance. Afonja‘s father was one of the men who swelled the army that…
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Kokoro Gangan was the first Aare-Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba nation, a soldier from Iwoye who was friend to the Alaafin Ajagbo, the war-loving prince. After him, the title has become like that of a Field Marshal, and is conferred upon the greatest soldier and tactician of the day.
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Adimu was in Oyo-biased account, one of Oduduwa’s trusty servants who, by circumstance, became the sovereign at Ile Ife, thereby occupying one of the most important offices in the entire old Yoruba nation. Oranyan left Adimu in charge of royal treasures when he set out for a retaliatory military action against his father’s adversaries in Egypt.…
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Oranyan was the last son of Oduduwa, whose disposition to war earned for him the rights to the throne of Ile Ife. His empire extended beyond present South West Nigeria further north, and to Dahomey and even some areas in Ghana. Oranyan was the second sovereign in Ile Ife, after Oduduwa and the first Alafin…
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Oyo in pre-annexation times, have had its people organized into a complex, highly structured society, having rules and unwritten constitutions. Had the British met them in this state, they would have marveled on how this people, considered to have lived in the Dark Continent could have evolved a system so pragmatic. The truth lives one…
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Ooni is the title of the occupier of the Oba of Ile-Ife town; mother town of the Yoruba people. The Ooni is taken as the direct descendant of Oduduwa, who was the first suzerain of the people. In Samuel Johnson’s varied account, the title was originated from Adimu, who was a servant of Oduduwa. In any…
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Oba is the Yoruba traditional title meaning “King”. The head of a town might be an Oba (crowned head) if descended from an Ooni of Ife, regarded in ancient times as the spiritual head of the Yorubas. Otherwise they are called Baale (headman). Usually, the first Oba for each town was a migrant who left…
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Alaafin is the title for the traditional ruler, or Oba of Oyo town, whose authority from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century extended to great parts of the western Yoruba territory of old. For over a hundred years, starting from the early 18th Century, the Alaafins employed their great names and aura in upholding order…
