Ordinary Nigerians Were Never Ordinary At All

On September 9, 2024, Fuad Lawal, chief archivist at Archivi.ng, issued a compelling summons. His call reached out to historians, journalists, filmmakers, writers, and anyone driven to understand the complexities of Nigerian history better. Dubbed The Archivi.ng Fellowship, the initiative posed a question: What stories and perspectives are hidden in Nigeria’s archives, waiting to be uncovered? After months of rigorous selection, five Nigerians emerged from the pool of applicants. Among them stood Samuel “Smish” Ishola, a fellow whose project—Ordinary Nigerians in History—promised to be among the most captivating of the cohort.

Ishola’s mission was to excavate the stories of ordinary Nigerians who shaped history from the shadows. What did life look like for everyday people navigating the currents of their time? That question crystallized into three podcast episodes, each uncovering the life of an overlooked Nigerian whose story impacted the nation’s fabric.

The first episode, and perhaps the most heartbreaking, is Adeola’s Dirge. It chronicles the life—and death—of Adeola, an elderly woman whose tragic end in 1888 became the catalyst for Nigeria’s modern healthcare system. At the time, colonial hospitals inspired such distrust that many Lagosians preferred indigenous healers or even dying at home to seeking colonial medical care. Ishola grounds the narrative in meticulous research, weaving together eyewitness accounts and court records to reconstruct what happened.

Adeola suffered from chronic ulcers and diarrhea, yet the colonial hospital discharged her and callously abandoned her body on the street. Eight days later, she died. Her death ignited something powerful, Lagosians refused to let it pass quietly. For those of us living today, it’s nearly impossible to fathom that this single woman’s death sparked activism, public outrage, and sustained advocacy that would reshape an entire system.

The legal battle that followed produced three landmark outcomes: the establishment of clear written protocols for patient admission and discharge, a mandate that hospitals care for the destitute, elderly, and disabled, the construction of an infirmary for those with incurable conditions, and the appointment of an oversight committee—comprising both British officials and native representatives—to conduct regular hospital inspections. For perhaps the first time, colonial authorities were forced to hear and respond to the voices of ordinary people.

Within a year, two Nigerian doctors were integrated into the colonial medical system. Adeola’s case also led to the enactment of Ordinance Number 13 of 1899, legislation that established the foundational standards for patient treatment in colonial hospitals. One woman’s death had rewritten the rules.

In The Ordinance, Ishola unearths the story of Samuel John and Wayin, a couple whose love ran headlong into the machinery of colonial law. Wayin had once been enslaved under the Jumbo house, one of the most powerful and respected lineages in Calabar. Though she and John married, their union existed under impossible constraints. When John sought to take his wife to visit his family in another territory, the head of the Jumbo house refused. Under the Native House Rule Ordinance of the Southern Protectorate of Nigeria, he had every legal right to do so.

This was 1901. Slavery had officially been abolished, yet the ordinance granted househeads governmental authority over the lives of those who had served under them. As the podcast host astutely observed: “In the Southern Protectorate of Nigeria, the British didn’t abolish slavery, they rebranded it.” The househeads wielded their power with legal impunity, making decisions that could shatter families and futures.

Wayin was never permitted to leave Calabar. The weight of that denial proved too much and the couple’s marriage eventually collapsed. But their story didn’t end in silence. The injustice faced by John and Wayin, along with the testimonies of countless others trapped in similar circumstances, mounted pressure that ultimately led to the repeal of the Native House Rule Ordinance. What began as one couple’s thwarted dream became a turning point in dismantling a system that had cloaked continued oppression in legal language.

The final episode, The Wedding That Never Happened, excavates an even more complex entanglement, one where English law collided with indigenous custom over the very definition of marriage. At its center stood two women and one man: he had married one woman under native law, then sought to marry another through colonial court proceedings. This 1911 case became a flashpoint, exposing the contradictions of a society caught between two opposing systems that refused to recognize each other.

The story depicted how tradition and modernity wrestled for dominance, and where ordinary people found themselves trapped in the wreckage. The case offers a window into what colonial Lagos was becoming: a space where definitions of legitimacy and family, competed. 

What makes all three stories so profound is how they portray that ordinary Nigerian lives have always possessed the power to reshape their worlds. Society has long reserved its honor roll for those who accomplish “great” things—but who decides what greatness means? An elderly woman teaching herself to read and write is greatness. Mama Balo, the CMUL legend who transcended her role as a cleaner to become a pillar in students’ lives, embodies greatness. Her story was documented by Vistanium, another visionary project from Fuad Lawal’s archive of the overlooked.

Uncovering our collective history doesn’t mean erecting yet another exhibition for an Afrobeat legend who, were he alive today, might not even care for the fanfare. True historical recovery lies in unraveling the threads woven by ordinary people, those who shaped history in quiet, indelible ways. The advisors who whispered wisdom to kings. The lovers who dared and lost. The sick woman who died in a colonial hospital’s negligence and sparked a revolution.

When we excavate these stories, a revelation emerges: ordinary Nigerians were never ordinary at all. They were—and remain—the architects of change, the unsung catalysts whose lives altered the course of a nation.