• Latest
  • Trending
Kanuri Origins of the Tinubu Family by FAROUK KPEROGI

Kanuri Origins of the Tinubu Family by FAROUK KPEROGI

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers

Nigerian Govt gifts Teenager who Won Global English Contest N200K

Nigerian Govt gifts Teenager who Won Global English Contest N200K

President’s Son Jailed Over Secret Sale of National Airline Plane

President’s Son Jailed Over Secret Sale of National Airline Plane

Kogi Final-Year Student Dies During 6-Month Pregnancy Abortion

Kogi Final-Year Student Dies During 6-Month Pregnancy Abortion

Tinubu Govt Backtracks as Japan Denies ‘Special Visa’ for Nigerians

Tinubu Govt Backtracks as Japan Denies ‘Special Visa’ for Nigerians

Delta Police Nab Officers Caught Counting Extorted Cash in Viral Video [Watch]

Delta Police Nab Officers Caught Counting Extorted Cash in Viral Video [Watch]

Uzodimma Raises Imo Minimum Wage to ₦104,000

Uzodimma Raises Imo Minimum Wage to ₦104,000

Friday, August 29, 2025
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
iDeemlawful
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured
  • Politics
  • LifeStyle
  • Advertise with Us
  • Opinion
  • Campus
iDeemlawful
No Result
View All Result
iDeemlawful
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured
  • Politics
  • LifeStyle
  • Advertise with Us
  • Opinion
  • Campus
Home Featured

Kanuri Origins of the Tinubu Family by FAROUK KPEROGI

by iDeemlawful
January 15, 2022
in Featured, Opinion
A A
0
Kanuri Origins of the Tinubu Family by FAROUK KPEROGI

There is probably no “indigenous” Lagos family that is more famous than the Tinubu family. But, although the family is now clearly culturally Yoruba, its ethnic provenance is traceable to what is now Borno State, according to Lagos historians, underscoring the historical and sociological inaccuracy of notions of ethnic purism in Nigeria.

The patriarch of the Tinubu family, historians of Lagos say, was a Kanuri man known as Momodu [it was most probably Modu since Kanuris tend to shorten Muhammad to Modu] Bugara who was also alternately called Momoh Abubakar, Momoh Bukar, or Alfa Ibunu. He was an Islamic scholar who migrated from the defunct Bornu Empire to what was then the Lagos Colony in the 1800s and achieved some renown in the Lagos society.

In the mid-1800s, he was employed as an Islamic spiritual guardian by Madam Efunroye Tinubu, a famous wealthy slave trader, power broker, and agitator in Lagos (who was later banished to Abeokuta by the Lagos Oba of the time). In time, the spiritual guardian fell in love with his employer, and they got married.

Ready also: Twitter Ban Costs Nigeria N10.72 Trillion- LCCI

SeeThese

Tinubu Govt Backtracks as Japan Denies ‘Special Visa’ for Nigerians

Tinubu asks Rivals to Accept Defeat as APC wins By-Election

MARITAL DESERTION: ABANDONING A MARRIAGE PARTNER OR RUNNING AWAY FROM MARRIAGE

US Supreme Court Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate For Workplace

Engr. Kastina Charged to Court For Slapping Security Guard

Customs Stray Bullet Reportedly Killed 2-year-old Girl In OgunBut the marriage didn’t produce children. Apparently, the childlessness of the marriage was a consequence of Madam Tinubu’s infertility because she consented to Bugara marrying other women with whom he bore children.

A mark of the cordiality that existed between Madam Tinubu and Alfa Bugara in spite of Bugara’s marriage to other women and having children by them was evident in the fact that Bugara’s children adopted Tinubu as their family name even though they didn’t share any filiation with Madam Tinubu.

I distilled these tidbits about the history of the Tinubu family from an insightful inaugural lecture titled “The Undertaker, the Python’s Eye and Footsteps of the Ant: The Historian’s Burden” delivered by Professor Siyan Oyeweso at the Lagos State University (LASU) in 2006. Oyeweso, one of Nigeria’s well-regarded historians who had an extensive academic career at LASU, now teaches at the Osun State University.

Professor Oyeweso quoted Madam Tinubu’s biographer by the name of Oladipo Yemitan as saying that while most people who bear the Tinubu name were children of Bugara who had no direct blood link with Madam Tinubu, scions of her former slaves and relatives from Abeokuta also bear it.

“During this association of Momoh Bukar and Efunroye Tinubu, the latter’s name was so pervasive and all-embracing that all within the household perforce assumed the name ‘Tinubu’,” Oyeweso quoted Yemitan to have written. “Included in this household were the children of Momoh Bukar by his other wives and Madame Tinubu’s relatives from Abeokuta who had joined her in Lagos and lived with her. Of course, a number of slaves also assumed the name.”

Nonetheless, based on my own knowledge of the people and sociology of Kanem-Bornu, Momodu Bugara was not Kanuri—at least not on his patrilineal side. He was most certainly a Shuwa Arab. Shuwa Arabs, who have been integral to the Bornu society for centuries and who number a little over a million in contemporary Borno State, are called “Baggara” [i.e., cattle herders] by Middle Eastern Arabs. I am certain that “Bugara” is the corruption of “Baggara” by Lagosians of the 1800s.

Although several Baggara people (whom Kanuris call “Shuwa Arabs”) still speak their dialect of the Arabic language, often called Chadian Arabic in the linguistics literature, many of them have intermarried with the dominant Kanuri people in Borno and have adopted the Kanuri language. The late Abba Kyari was a Kanurised Shuwa Arab/Baggara. For all you know, Abba Kyari and the “Bugara” line of the Tinubu family in Lagos may share distant ancestral links!Now, why is this history important? For one, it helps to exemplify the complexity and syncretism of ethnic identity in Nigeria. For another it says something about the name “Tinubu” particularly in light of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s declaration that he wants to be the next president of Nigeria.

When Professor Oyeweso delivered his lecture in 2006, Bola Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State. This fact wasn’t lost on Oyeweso.“Mr. Vice – Chancellor, Sir, today, the current administration of Lagos State is headed by a Tinubu,” he said.

“The Tinubu’s [sic] are also generally acknowledged as Lagosians. Another Tinubu headed the Lagos State Civil Service for five years. Others had distinguished themselves in journalism, security and community services, the organised private sector and in other walks of life.”

But this is where Oyeweso got it all wrong. Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not a member of any version of the Tinubu family. He is neither from the original Abeokuta Tinubu bloodline, the “Bugara” pedigree, nor the slave line of descent.

Bola Tinubu is from a town in Osun State called Iragbiji, which is the headquarters of Boripe Local Government Area. His older sister is the mother of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, the current governor of Osun State. By several credible accounts, including from informants in Iragbiji, Bola Tinubu’s original name was Amoda Lamidi Sangodele.

Amoda is the Yoruba Muslim domestication of Ahmad (which underwent phonetic transformation from Ahmad to Amadu to Amoda). The vowels in the name (“o” and “a” were merely transposed.

Lamidi is the Yoruba Muslim domestication of Abdulhamid. As I wrote in my July 13, 2014, column titled “Top 10 Yoruba Names You Never Guessed Were Arabic Names,” because of Yoruba people’s fondness for the short forms of names, they often dispense with “Abdul” in Muslim names that begin with that prefix. So that leaves us with Hamid.

Now, there is something some people call the “h-factor” in Yoruba, which is the tendency for Yoruba speakers to unconsciously eliminate the “h” sound in words in which it is normally pronounced and to add it to words that don’t have it when they encounter a foreign language. So “eat” is often pronounced as “heat” and “heat” is pronounced as “it.”

Given this phonological characteristic, “Hamid” becomes “Amid,” but the interference of the “l” sound in “Abdul” also causes it to be rendered as “Lamid.” Like in all Niger Congo languages, it’s unnatural for words to not have a terminal vowel in Yoruba, so a terminal vowel is added to Lamid to produce Lamidi.In other words, in his current name, only “Ahmed” is faithful to his original name since Amoda is the domestication of Ahmad, which is often orthographically Anglicised as “Ahmed.”

Pastor Tunde Bakare helped to push this aspect of Tinubu’s past into the center of national consciousness during a dishonest sermon in December 2020 that pretended to defend Tinubu. In my December 26, 2020, column titled “Bakare Didn’t Defend Tinubu; He Defanged Him,” I unpacked Bakare’s sly unmasking of Tinubu’s identity chicanery.

I wrote: “In Bakare’s political homily, he basically affirmed all the hitherto fringy whispers about Tinubu: that he is from Iragbiji in Osun State; that his current name is not his original name; that he has disowned his biological parents and ‘adopted’ the Tinubu family of Lagos with whom he has zero consanguineal affiliation; that the late legendary Alhaja Abibat Mogaji of Lagos is not Tinubu’s biological mother…”

It’s also intriguing, by the way, that “Mogaji,” the last name of Tinubu’s adopted mother, is the Yoruba domestication of the Hausa name Magaji, which means successor or inheritor. I am curious to know what Alhaja Abibat Mogaji’s ancestral story is. Like her last name, Tinubu’s daughter, Folashade, has become an inheritor of Alhaja Abibat’s “Ìyál’ọ́jà of Lagos” title and privileges.Well, I can understand Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s opportunistic adoption of the Tinubu name as his family. After all, most people identified with the Tinubu family name in Lagos today aren’t related to Madam Efunroye Tinubu who popularised it in nineteenth-century Lagos.

If descendants of Kanurised Shuwa Arabs (or Baggara) can be Tinubu, why not an Amoda Lamidi Sangodele, a Yoruba man from Iragbiji? But I don’t and can’t understand why he would also “adopt” Alhaja Mogaji as his mother to the point of shunning the funeral of his own biological mother in Iragbiji, according to the late Yinka Odumakin. Well, make of that what you will.

Tags: Bola Ahmed TinubuKperogiopinionTinubu 2023
Share196Tweet123SendShare
Previous Post

Twitter Ban Costs Nigeria N10.72 Trillion- LCCI

Next Post

Ibadan High Chiefs Vs Oyo Gov: Chief Judge adjourn lawsuit, frown at lawyers

iDeemlawful

iDeemlawful

Next Read

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers
Featured

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers

...

Read more
Tinubu Govt Backtracks as Japan Denies ‘Special Visa’ for Nigerians
Featured

Tinubu Govt Backtracks as Japan Denies ‘Special Visa’ for Nigerians

...

Read more
Uzodimma Raises Imo Minimum Wage to ₦104,000
Featured

Uzodimma Raises Imo Minimum Wage to ₦104,000

...

Read more
UNRULY PASSENGERS UNDER NIGERIAN AVIATION LAW: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Commentary

UNRULY PASSENGERS UNDER NIGERIAN AVIATION LAW: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

...

Read more
EFCC detains NAHCON Top Official Over Alleged ₦50bn 2025 Hajj Fraud
Business News

EFCC detains NAHCON Top Official Over Alleged ₦50bn 2025 Hajj Fraud

...

Read more
Alaafin Gives Ooni 48-Hour Ultimatum Over Yorubaland Title Clash
Breaking News

Alaafin Gives Ooni 48-Hour Ultimatum Over Yorubaland Title Clash

...

Read more
By-Election Results across States, recount as APC Sweeps 12 Seats, PDP, LP, ADC Struggle
Featured

By-Election Results across States, recount as APC Sweeps 12 Seats, PDP, LP, ADC Struggle

...

Read more
How President Tinubu, Opposition Coalition Leaders Snubbed Each Other at Buhari’s burial
Featured

How President Tinubu, Opposition Coalition Leaders Snubbed Each Other at Buhari’s burial

...

Read more
Next Post
Court Remands Hotel Staff For Stealing Guest’s T-Shirt

Ibadan High Chiefs Vs Oyo Gov: Chief Judge adjourn lawsuit, frown at lawyers

SOUTH-WEST ZONE OF LAWSAN PAYS CONDOLENCE VISIT TO OLUBADAN PALACE

SOUTH-WEST ZONE OF LAWSAN PAYS CONDOLENCE VISIT TO OLUBADAN PALACE

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended

#EkitiDecides: Gov Fayemi Casts Vote, Makes Comments On Ongoing Election

#EkitiDecides: Gov Fayemi Casts Vote, Makes Comments On Ongoing Election

5000 APC members defect to PDP in Kogi

5000 APC members defect to PDP in Kogi

2023: Obi leads Tinubu, Atiku, Kwankwaso in poll

#NigeriaDecides: Atiku Leads With Wide Margin In Adamawa

Most Popular

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers
Featured

Ebonyi Government Raises Minimum Wage to N90K for Workers

Nigerian Govt gifts Teenager who Won Global English Contest N200K
Campus News

Nigerian Govt gifts Teenager who Won Global English Contest N200K

President’s Son Jailed Over Secret Sale of National Airline Plane
International News

President’s Son Jailed Over Secret Sale of National Airline Plane

iDeemlawful

Copyright © 2019 iDeemlawful.

Useful Links

  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Editorial Policy

Follow Us

Copyright © 2019 iDeemlawful.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In