History editor

Chidiebere Okafor

Works on the histories that are held locally rather than written down, and on the buildings that are the last surviving witness to them.

Based in Enugu

The Osun-Osogbo grove survived because clearing it was forbidden, and became a UNESCO site by accident of that prohibition.

19 Jul 20266 min read

Gobarau has stood in Katsina since the fourteenth century, when the town was a stop on the scholars' road between Timbuktu and Cairo.

28 Jun 20267 min read

Egba refugees settled under Olumo in the 1830s because it could be defended. Everything since has been built outward from that decision.

20 Jun 20268 min read

An hour from Lagos, a lagoon town that holds more of the country's history than the city ever has to.

28 May 202610 min read

Seven hundred years of earth fortification, and no clear answer to who is supposed to maintain them.

19 May 20268 min read

Arochukwu governed trade across the Igbo interior through a shrine, until the British destroyed it in 1902.

24 Mar 20269 min read