I always say that storytellers are one of the most powerful people on the planet. They have the ability to put down things that’d last generations, and provide what the future with hold as the truth. Different times, stories have been retold and rewritten to suit narratives and change history, either for good or for bad. One of these stories is in the conversation now, and it’s the story of Efunroye Tinubu.
Efunroye Tinubu was a powerful Yoruba merchant and slave trader in pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria. She was a huge political and economical influence in her period and helped Obas gain power. She personally owned 360 slaves and had deep ties with European merchants, supplying them palm and coconut oil, cotton, tobacco, salt, firearms and slaves.
She later fell out of favor with the British. After the British removed Oba Kosoko from his throne and replaced him with Akitoye who was backed by Tinubu, the British had Akitoye sign the 1852 Treaty Between Great Britain and Lagos, which required Lagosians to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Tinubu covertly persisted in operating the slave trade with Brazilian and European merchants, in violation of the treaty, and Akitoye willingly permitted this.
The British consul at the time Benjamin Campbell denounced Tinubu’s economic hegemony over Lagos and her secret slave-trading, and she came into conflict with the British and rival Lagos merchants. Following the beginning of Oba Dosunnu’s reign, he exiled Tinubu to Abeokuta under Campbell’s pressure after Tinubu plotted unsuccessful conspiracies to remove British influence from Lagos and assassinate Campbell.
While in Abeokuta, she helped supply the city with munitions during its victorious war against the Kingdom of Dahomey, thus earning her the chieftaincy title of the Iyalode of the Egbas.
She died in Abeokuta in 1887. The landmark Tinubu Square in Lagos was named after her and also has a statue of her. She also has a statue in Abeokuta.
Faithia Williams is currently set to release a movie modeled and named after Efunroye Tinubu and has gone to social media to promote the historical figure in a bid to promote her movie. “Power. Trade. Legacy. She was more than a warrior, she was a ruler who rewrote history. ‘Efunroye: The Unicorn’ is coming to your screens soon!” she wrote.
She faced serious backlash on social media from fans and the general public. She was accused of not being in tune with her own history and celebrating the wrong people. People called her out for describing a slave trader as a warrior. They called her ignorant for taking someone who didn’t want slavery to end and calling her a ruler who rewrote history.
While it is commendable, what Nollywood is doing with our history, there are dangers nobody wants to talk about. Who’s making sure we are telling the right stories? Who is guiding the storytellers? Who validates the stories being told? A quick search on Efunroye’s lifetime shows she was a prominent slave trader who made a fortune selling her own people and did everything in her power to make sure slavery did not end.
Today she has one of the most monumental places in Lagos named after her. She has two statues in the south west. She’s about to have a well produced movie in her name telling a story that’s probably not true, or one sided. These things will flush the truth to the back, and we will celebrate our villains as heroes. We will celebrate the very people who made Nigeria what it is today.
I would not want to believe that Faithia Balogun would not do research on her lead character before she would do a movie on the person. I’d like to believe she has a special angle of the story to tell. Maybe there’s new information our ancestors didn’t witness. Maybe there’s a possibility that Efunroye Tinubu is actually a warrior and ruler who rewrote history and not a slave trader who sold her people for money.
I always say that storytellers are one of the most powerful people on the planet. They have the ability to put down things that’d last generations, and provide what the future with hold as the truth. Different times, stories have been retold and rewritten to suit narratives and change history, either for good or for bad. One of these stories is in the conversation now, and it’s the story of Efunroye Tinubu.
