Do you know that during the height of Colonialism, Yorubas were printing their own news in the Yoruba language
Here is how Lagos pioneers built a vibrant Yoruba print culture in the 1920s – at the height of colonialism
Lagos was a thriving commercial port on the coast of West Africa well before the imposition of British colonial rule in 1861. The printing press was brought to the region by Christian missionaries in the mid-1800s.
At the inland mission station at Abeokuta, the Church Missionary Society published translations of Christian texts, and pioneered the first Yoruba newspaper, Iwe Irohin, from 1859 to 1867.
But in Lagos, the press was in the hands of independent entrepreneurs, not missionary organisations, from the beginning. The first Lagos printing press was established in 1862 and others quickly followed. Most of what they printed up to the early 1900s was in English, read only by a small, highly educated elite.
This was because after colonisation, English had become the language of government, administration, secondary education and international commerce as well as Christian worship. And the core of the early elite were “returnees” who had been liberated from the slave trade, converted to Christianity, and educated in English before making their way back to their Yoruba homeland. For some, English came more easily than Yoruba.
Some of the elite did have an interest in Yoruba literature, and in the late 19th century the Lagos presses published several books in Yoruba: proverbs, riddles, divination poetry and popular oral poetry, which members of the educated elite collected and wrote down. But this was a very small part of the Lagos print output of the time.
In the 1910s, however, a new potential readership had emerged – people who had attended elementary school and were literate in Yoruba, the language of everyday life for the majority of Lagos citizens.
They provided a new market and a new audience for a local, Yoruba-language print culture. Growing opposition to colonial policies made ordinary people eager to engage in political commentary and debate, while the flourishing oral street culture of Lagos primed them to enjoy new Yoruba-language genres in print
Yorubas has been an advanced Ethnic group
SALAKO KELECHI is suffering from childhood trauma watching his mom turned to a punching bag.
IFE SALAKO was raised with hate by an evil ibo woman.
OLOYE is a shameless scammer.
AKIN TOLLGATE is a spineless man who stands for nothing.
Miserable people who supports Peter Obi‼️
You're so stupid that you think elections are only fair when someone from your party wins and rigged when someone from another party wins. You cry and bitch about everything, instead of focusing on building a strong opposition. When you people realized that you've wasted the last three years crying, you started begging your opposition to strengthen you.
I've never seen a ballless, gutless and spineless set of people like you lots. You guys are lucky that a president can only go for two terms. With the way you people are behaving, Tinubu would have gone for 5 times sef.
I don’t know why Dr Dipo is disrespected and always expected to be the dust bin of everybody on this app?
What has this man done to all of you?
A friend called me from USA yesterday and asked me if I could tell him why this cyberbullies easily try to pick on Dr Dipo easily????
@OgbeniDipo Please It is better to be feared than to be loved.
There is a limit to humility and simplicity. I learnt this the hard way.
You did not nothing wrong. God bless you sir.
Why are Obidients making it seem like they were the ones who voted for Adeleke?
Why try to control someone you didn’t vote for?
Why are you telling him who to endorse?
Are you people okay at all?
NDC had no candidate.
ADC got just 17,000 votes.
Are you people fine at all?
Oga, honourary Doctor is not a Dr.
Stop impersonating with the title.
You didn't get the memo from the minister of education, a member of your party?
As a youth leader, age is still on your side to earn a Ph.D or go back to school to earn a degree that comes with the title.