Rẹ́mọ, Ṣàgámù, Ìkọ̀rọdú, Èpé and Badagry

The towns in this file share a derivation from Ìjẹ̀bú and a position on the lagoon and the routes from it, and they differ from one another sharply in how they relate to Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde. Rẹ́mọ has claimed autonomy from the Awùjalẹ̀ for as long as the record allows, Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìgbó operates inside his paramountcy, and Ìkọ̀rọdú and Èpé ended up in Lagos State and therefore in a different administrative world from either. Badagry is not Ìjẹ̀bú at all; it is here because it belongs with the coastal towns and because its history is the Atlantic one.

Rẹ́mọ and Ṣàgámù

The Akárigbò of Rẹ́moland is the paramount ruler of the thirty-three towns making up the Rẹ́mọ kingdom in Ògùn State, with Ṣàgámù as the capital 1.

The 1872 assembly

Ṣàgámù is a made town, and the making is documented and recent. Thirteen of the thirty-three Rẹ́mọ towns congregated at Ṣàgámù in 1872 for greater security 12. They were Offin, where the Akárigbò's palace stands, together with Makun, Sonyindo, Epe, Ibido, Igbepa, Ado, Oko, Ipoji, Batoro, Ijoku, Latawa and Ijagba 2.

The driver was the internal warfare following the collapse of Ọ̀yọ́, together with slave raiding and the Abẹ́òkúta and Dahomey conflicts, and the Akárigbò established Ṣàgámù as a refuge for populations displaced from the north and west 1. The twelfth Akárigbò, Faranpojo, relocated the capital during those wars 3.

The thirteen constituent towns did not dissolve. They persist as named quarters within Ṣàgámù, each with its own chiefs and its own identity, which makes Ṣàgámù structurally similar to Abẹ́òkúta: a nineteenth-century security amalgamation that kept its parts. This is the standard Yoruba answer to the wars of that century, and it is why so many large Yoruba towns are federations of quarters rather than organically grown settlements.

The contested status question

Whether Rẹ́mọ is part of Ìjẹ̀bú or a separate kingdom is a live dispute and both positions are on the record.

The Rẹ́mọ autonomy claim holds that Rẹ́moland was established in the mid-fifteenth century by people tracing ancestry to Iremo in Ilé-Ifẹ̀, that the region had its own kingdom structure by the early sixteenth century, and that while sharing strong cultural homogeneity with the Ìjẹ̀bú kingdom, the Rẹ́mọ maintained a distinct political identity and did not historically consider themselves under Ìjẹ̀bú rule 3.

The Ìjẹ̀bú-derivation claim holds that the ọba of Rẹ́mọ have existed since the founding of the Ìjẹ̀bú kingdom by Ọbanta and the arrival of Prince Akárigbò in the western area of that kingdom around the early sixteenth century 1, and the Awùjalẹ̀ is regarded as paramount over every town originally an Ìjẹ̀bú domain 4.

The two are not reconciled anywhere in the accessible sources. This is a status dispute with present consequences for protocol and precedence, not merely a historiographical disagreement, and it should be reported as unresolved. The colonial administration's handling of the relationship has itself been studied 5.

Ruling houses and current status

Four families descended from the sons of the first Akárigbò are eligible for the throne, and the documented lineage names given are Aderan, Debolu, Gbelu, Lokusade, Anoko and Odumena, which is six names for four families and is internally inconsistent in the source 1. Report the inconsistency rather than resolving it.

The current holder is Ọba Babátúndé Adéwálé Ajayi, Torungbuwa II, nineteenth Akárigbò, installed on 7 December 2017 16.

Ṣàgámù is a city and local government area in Ògùn State with 253,412 people at the 2006 census, a centre of cement production on the local limestone deposits, and the largest kola-nut collecting centre in Nigeria, positioned on the routes between Lagos and Ìbàdàn 7. The kola trade is the older economic base and it connects Rẹ́mọ directly to the northern Nigerian and trans-Saharan markets, where kola from this forest zone has been the principal southern export for centuries.

Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìgbó

The founding tradition is a succession refusal. A prince from near present-day Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, a skilled hunter named Onayelu, was away hunting when his father died and his younger brother took the throne; he chose not to return and settled permanently in his hunting grounds, which became Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìgbó 8.

The ruler is the Orímọlùṣì of Ìjẹ̀bú-Ìgbó, presiding over territory spanning four local government areas and ten local council development areas in Ògùn State, described as the largest kingdom in the state by land mass with more than three hundred villages 8. The town has five clans, Oke-Sopin, Oke-Agbo, Ojowo, Atikori and Japara, each with its own ọba, all submitting to the Orímọlùṣì 8.

Ifẹ̀ tradition names the Orímọlùṣì as a founder who came out of the Òkèrewè quarter of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, which sits alongside rather than against the Ìjẹ̀bú-prince account and is a good example of how two towns can each hold an origin story for the same title without either being obviously wrong.

The Orímọlùṣì operates within the Awùjalẹ̀'s paramountcy over Ìjẹ̀bú domains 4.

Ìkọ̀rọdú

Ìkọ̀rọdú is a city and local government area in Lagos State, about thirty-seven kilometres northeast of Lagos on the Lagos lagoon, the twelfth largest city in Nigeria with over a million inhabitants and a projection of 1.7 million by 2035 9.

Its indigenous settlers migrated from Ṣàgámù and parts of Ìjẹ̀bú in present-day Ògùn State, and the Yoruba spoken there is the Ìjẹ̀bú dialect 9. The ruler's title is Ayangburen.

The founding tradition is confused in the accessible sources and the confusion should be reported rather than smoothed. The settlement is said to have grown under Oga Lasunwon, described in one account as a single figure, a prince of the Akárigbò lineage, and in another as two: Oga, crowned prince of Rẹ́mọ and an offspring of Kuyelu, a descendant of Akárigbò of Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ from Orile Offin Ṣàgámù, and Lasunwon, who was installed as the first Olója of Ìkọ̀rọdú by Olisa Rebugbawa, the first Olisa, after Oga died 10. The Ìkọ̀rọdú Oga statue commemorates Oga 11. Note also that the first title recorded is Olója and Ayangburen is the later paramount style; the point of transition is not established in the accessible sources.

The Palace of the Ayangburen is a documented site 12, and the town's festival is the Odun-Osu 13.

Ìkọ̀rọdú was reorganised in 2003 into five local council development areas, Imota, Igbogbo/Bayeku, Ijede, Ikorodu North and Ikorodu West, alongside the main local government area 9. It hosts Caleb University, the first private university in Lagos State, and the Imota rice mill opened in 2021 with a capacity of 2.8 million fifty-kilogram bags a year 9.

Èpé

Èpé is a city and local government area in Lagos State on the north side of the Lekki lagoon, about ninety kilometres from Ìbàdàn, with 181,409 people at the 2006 census and around 269,000 in 2022 14.

The founding tradition has a hunter named Uraka arriving on an expedition and settling at Oko-Eepe, glossed as the forest of black ants, from which the name derives, with a further connection to Uraka's wife Peeta; by 1810 Èpé was a fairly large town 14. The ruler is the Olója of Èpé, currently Ọba Kamorudeen Ishola Animashaun 14.

Èpé's second founding is Lagosian. In 1851, after being ousted by the British bombardment, Ọba Kòṣọ́kọ́ of Lagos took refuge at Èpé with over fifteen hundred followers 14. His presence introduced Islam to the area, several of his warriors converted, and the Muslim communities they founded persist 14.

The well-known division of Èpé into an Ìjẹ̀bú quarter and an Èkó quarter, the latter descending from Kòṣọ́kọ́'s Lagos followers, is strongly implied by that history and is widely reported locally, but it is not stated explicitly in the sources consulted here. Treat the division as locally attested and the sourcing as thin.

Badagry

Badagry is the Atlantic town and its history is the hardest in this section.

Names. Badagry or Badagri; Gbagli in Gun. The name likely derives from Gbede:gli:me, inside the blacksmith's walls, in the Gbe languages, referring to an early settler named Agbede who farmed okra 15.

Population and origins. The initial inhabitants included Àwórì groups from Ilé-Ifẹ̀ alongside displaced peoples, primarily Ogu, Ewe and Ọ̀yọ́ Yoruba, and Robin Law characterises the settlement as resettlement for displaced peoples of varied ethnic groups 15. Migrants organised into eight wards, each with autonomous traditional leadership 15.

Badagry is therefore not a Yoruba town in the way Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde is. It is a plural coastal settlement in which Yoruba, Ogu (Egun) and Ewe elements all have standing, and Ogu culture, including the Zangbeto masquerade historically used for community security and dispute resolution, is a substantial part of its life 15.

Ruler and wards. The Akran of Badagry. The eight quarters are Jegba, which is the Akran's ruling house, together with Asago, Ganho, Posuko, Boeko, Ahoviko, Ahwanjigo and Wharakoh, each with independent chiefs 15. Ọba Babátúndé Akran, De Wheno Aholu Menu-Toyi I, born 1936, a former journalist, ascended on 23 April 1977 and served as permanent vice-chairman of the Lagos State Council of Ọba and Chiefs; he died in January 2026 after forty-eight years on the throne 16. His age at death is reported inconsistently as eighty-nine and ninety 16, and his successor is not established in the sources consulted here.

The trade. From 1736 a European trader, possibly the Dutch merchant Hendrik Hertogh, established a trading post and Badagry became a commercial hub, functioning as a middleman port on a smaller scale than Ouidah or Bonny; by 1865 roughly eight hundred enslaved people were shipped from Badagry annually 15.

The Vlekete market. The Vlekete or Velekete slave market is said to have been established in 1502 and named for the Vlekete deity, goddess of the ocean and wind, and is described as one of the most populous slave markets in West Africa, opening for business every two days with reportedly no fewer than nine hundred people sold per week, auctioned for iron bars, mirrors, cotton, dry gin, whiskey, cannon, gunpowder, guns and assorted spirits 17.

Two cautions on those figures. The 1502 date and the nine-hundred-a-week figure come from tourism-oriented Nigerian sources, are widely repeated, and are not corroborated in the academic literature consulted; present them as claims rather than findings. The 1502 date in particular sits uneasily with the 1736 date for the establishment of European trading and with the general chronology of the Bight of Benin trade, which becomes heavy only in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Point of No Return. On Gberefu Island, a cenotaph marks the point at which enslaved people last stood on African soil 1518. Captives moved from the market to a barracoon, a holding cell, before shipment past the Point 18. Local belief held that drinking from an associated well caused captives to forget their past lives 15. Museums along Marina Road display shackles, chains and drinking vessels 1519.

The heritage site is real and the physical objects are real. The narrative attached to it in tourism presentation has hardened into a set formula, and a reader should hold the site and the script about it slightly apart.

The mission. The first Christian missionaries in Nigeria, Thomas Birch Freeman for the Wesleyan Methodists and Henry Townsend for the CMS, landed in 1842 20. Christianity was first preached under the Agia tree at Badagry by Freeman and Townsend on 24 September 1842; the tree stood a hundred and sixty feet with a thirty-foot circumference 21. The First Storey Building in Nigeria was built between 1842 and 1845, principally by Townsend, as the vicarage for the Anglican church, and Samuel Àjàyí Crowther worked there on his Bible translation 2215.

The Christmas claims conflict. One source gives the first Christmas celebrated in Nigeria at Badagry on 25 December 1842 15; another has Freeman reaching Abẹ́òkúta on 11 December 1843, returning to Badagry on 24 December and celebrating Christmas with Townsend there 23. Methodist missionaries are also recorded arriving around 1837, preaching under an Agia tree before building a bamboo church 15. Treat 24 September 1842 as the best-attested preaching date and the Christmas claims as contested.

On the Brazilian connection. No documented Agùdà, that is Brazilian-returnee, community history specific to Badagry could be verified in the sources consulted. The well-documented Agùdà communities are at Lagos Island and Porto-Novo, and Badagry's return-diaspora framing today runs through the Fourth Door of Return heritage programme rather than through a historic returnee quarter 24. Do not assert an Agùdà presence at Badagry without further sourcing.

Current status. City and local government area in Lagos State with 241,093 people at the 2006 census, economically dependent on fishing, trading and tourism, with plans for an additional seaport to relieve Lagos congestion, and an annual Badagry Festival 1525.