DispatchKwara8.50°N 4.54°E
A new substation in Kwara, and what it does not do
The state has a new piece of the national grid. It is worth being precise about what that changes, because it is not the thing most people will assume.
Strand
History
Histories held locally — in walls, in buildings, and in what people still say about them.
Photo essayOsogbo7.78°N 4.54°E
The forest that was never allowed to be cleared
The Osun-Osogbo grove survived because clearing it was forbidden, and became a UNESCO site by accident of that prohibition.
Local historyKatsina12.99°N 7.60°E
The minaret that outlived its city walls
Gobarau has stood in Katsina since the fourteenth century, when the town was a stop on the scholars' road between Timbuktu and Cairo.
Local historyAbeokuta7.16°N 3.35°E
A town that is still arranged around its rock
Egba refugees settled under Olumo in the 1830s because it could be defended. Everything since has been built outward from that decision.
Local historyBadagry6.43°N 2.89°E
What Badagry carries
An hour from Lagos, a lagoon town that holds more of the country's history than the city ever has to.
Local historyZaria11.09°N 7.72°E
Zaria's walls are going back to the ground
Seven hundred years of earth fortification, and no clear answer to who is supposed to maintain them.
Local historyLokoja7.80°N 6.73°E
Where two rivers meet and refuse to mix
At Lokoja the Niger and the Benue join, and for a stretch below the confluence you can see the join.
Photo essayIdanre7.12°N 5.10°E
The town that lived on the hills and then came down
Six hundred and sixty-seven steps up to a settlement that was occupied for centuries and left largely as it stood.
Oral historyArochukwu5.39°N 7.91°E
The oracle that ran the interior
Arochukwu governed trade across the Igbo interior through a shrine, until the British destroyed it in 1902.