-Presents historic over 100 years letters
Kunle Adelabu & Mariam Akinloye
In commemoration of the 1862 return of King Kosoko to Lagos, after his exile in Epe, the King Kosoko Royal Family on Sunday, September 15, staged a procession round the major areas of Lagos Island.
The celebration, which began last week’s Sunday with the King Kosoko Memorial Lecture, is themed, “The 1862 Return”.
The procession, which was led by the Oloja – elect, Prince Abiola Kosoko, saw chieftains and members of the royal family taking off from the King Kosoko Palace at Ereko, Lagos, and moved through Balogun Street to link Broad Street, Tinubu Square, Nnamdi Azikwe Road, Tom Jones, Dosumu, Idumota and back on the Ereko road.
At the palace, different groups staged cultural performances to entertain guests.
Later at night, Prince Kosoko, again, led family members and representatives of three of the descendants of Prince Olanrewaju, the Oba – elect of Oriba Kingdom, Mr Tayo Ope from Ope of Epetedo Descendant, Mr Mumuni Oloko from Iyanda Oloko family and Prince Adebayo from Eshinlokun Descendant, who are some of the families that came back with Kosoko to Lagos, to light the arrival light.
He assured family members that efforts will be intensified to make others be part of the celebration in subsequent years.
There was also another session where Princesses of King Kosoko royal family read some of the correspondences of King Kosoko with his Portuguese partners. The letters are almost 200 years old.
The Oloja – elect said that the letters that were written in 1848 and 1845, proved that King Kosoko had been in relationship with Portuguese long before.
“These are some of the letters found in the palace when Lagos was burnt about 172 years ago. These are descendants of King Kosoko, who are going to read the letters.
“These letters described Kosoko’s business dealings with the Portuguese long before the British came to Lagos. Kosoko had been writing letters to the Portuguese.
“It wasn’t the British that taught people of Lagos about letter writings and business communication. Lagos had it before any part of Nigeria starts communicating with the outside world. Lagos had dealings with the outside world
“Kosoko was actively involved and he has been doing that before 1818. His writings to his business partners are available with us.
“We have over 700 letters (of late king Kosoko), but we are going to be reading just three for the purpose of tonight’s event. You can pay a visit to the palace if you want to read other letters and the museum”.
While explaining one of the letters in which a Portuguese wrote to King Kosoko that he is unable to send certain amount of money due to him after the sales of 12 ‘bails’, Prince Kosoko said that the correspondents referred to ‘bails’ as humans.
The Oloja – elect, on behalf of the royal family, apologized for the involvement of their ancestor in the trading in humans during the period of slave trade.
“This letter was from someone who was a business partner to Kosoko, and had helped him to make some sales which he referred to as ‘bails’. 12 bails mean 12 multiply by 12 and bails means human beings and which means that he sold 125 human beings.
“We (present generation) are not happy with the involvement of King Kosoko in slave trade. We are not the ones. It was the prevailing things in those days. We apologise on their behalf for that”, Prince Kosoko said.
While also speaking on another letter from Delhi in Brazil, Prince Kosoko said that, the Kosoko deity is still being celebrated in Brazil.
“Right now, in Brazil, two important things are happening, the first one is Esu Oloja which is the deity taken from the Kosoko’s enclave to that place. We still know that we have our properties there and that our people died and buried there.
He emphasized that Lagos has been the commercial nerve centre of Africa long before now.
