MADAM TINUBU

1805-1887 (82 yeArs)

Shrewd and ambitious business tycoon, Efunporoye Osuntinubu Olumosa popularly referred to, as Madam Tinubu is a great Nigerian activist. She lived between 1810 and 1887 and today, a massive statue of her stands proudly at the Tinubu square in Lagos. The life of this powerful Yoruba slave trader and political activist is both shamed and celebrated but more than often celebrated because without her, the slave trade in Badagry may never have been abolished. Born into a tradition where postcolonial slavery was prevalent, Madam Tinubu continued in local slave trading and extended her prowess into tobacco and salt wielding economic and political powers in Abeokuta, Lagos and across West Africa with the influence of her husband, King Adele. Later she became an advocate for the abolition of the colonial slave trade after realising the torture and sufferings that slaves went through. She then became a staunch advocate against British rule and was exiled. Her exile was because she had secretly organised a plot to remove British Consul Benjamin Campell in 1856 but was confronted and escorted out of Lagos at gunpoint. She moved to Abeokuta where she traded in firearms and gunpowder being a major supplier during the war against Dahomey. Through her political influence and power, Madam Efunroye was able to get many traditional rulers including Oba Akintoye to sign documents that ended Africans selling other Africans to the Europeans.