Meet Madam Efunroye Tinubu, the powerful slave trader who controlled Lagos

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In both Lagos and Abeokuta, Efunroye Tinubu was a significant female political and business leader.

She married and had two boys after being born in Abeokuta in the early 1800s, but her husband died shortly after.

She remarried Adele, an exiled Oba of Lagos, in 1833 and started to gain considerable political and economic influence.

After they relocated to Badagry, Tinubu established a prosperous business empire by exchanging slaves for tobacco and salt with European traders.

Tinubu went back to Lagos in 1835 after Adele reclaimed control. She remarried Adele’s military advisor, Yesefu Bada, after he passed away two years later.

She added slaves and palm oil to her network of traders. By controlling palm oil throughout the Yoruba Wars in the 1840s and 1850s, Tinubu grew her fortune wealth by monopolising palm oil and slave trading, as well as selling weapons she obtained from European contacts.

The highest chieftaincy title for women, Iyalode of Egbaland, was bestowed upon Madam Tinubu in recognition of her significant contribution to the struggle against Dahomey.

[Wikipedia] Efunroye Tinubu Statue Abeokuta

Nigerian historian Oladipo Yemitan’s book, Madame Tinubu: Merchant and Kingmaker, examines her position on the slave trade.

She rejected the purported selling of a young boy into slavery, which was one of the most prominent events in her life.

Another, known as the Amadie-Ojo Affair, describes a botched slave trading transaction in which she stated that she would prefer to let 20 slaves perish than to receive half of the money for them.

Broad Street in Lagos [Thenation] is where Tinubu Square is located.

Additionally, she vigorously resisted colonial measures in Lagos and played a significant role in Abeokuta’s king-making activities, supporting Prince Oyekan over Ademola for the title of Alake of Egbaland in 1879.

But following a run-in with British Consul Benjamin Campbell, who objected to her economic dominance and illegal slave trade, her influence decreased.

Tinubu publicly denounced Campbell for violating the sovereignty of Lagos. Following a confrontation with British gunboats in May 1856, Campbell requested her expulsion. She resisted, but British military might compelled her to return to Abeokuta.

She passed away in 1887, and Tinubu Square on Lagos Island is now named in her honour. Ironically, her slaves inherited her belongings after her death.

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