15 Facts About Kitoye Ajasa

Sir Kitoye Ajasa was a Nigerian lawyer and legislator during the colonial period.

Kitoye Ajasa was conservative, and worked closely with the colonial authorities.

Kitoye Ajasa thought that progress would only be possible if Africans adopted European ideas and institutions.

Kitoye Ajasa was from a branch of the Saro community that had migrated from Ajase in Dahomey to Lagos.

Kitoye Ajasa's father, Thomas Benjamin Macaulay, had been born in Dahomey, taken into slavery and then freed in Sierra Leone.

Kitoye Ajasa then moved to England where he attended Dulwich College, a public school, and then studied law at the Inner Temple Inn of Court.

Kitoye Ajasa changed his name to Kitoye Ajasa after spending twelve years in London.

Kitoye Ajasa returned to Lagos, where he started his legal practice.

In 1906, Kitoye Ajasa became an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, and in 1914, he was made a member of the Nigerian Council of Governor-General Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard.

Kitoye Ajasa was one of the leading members of the People's Union founded in 1908 by John Randle.

Kitoye Ajasa founded the Nigerian Pioneer in 1914 as an alternative to the radical Weekly Record of John Payne Jackson.

Kitoye Ajasa wrote in 1923 that his paper "existed in order to interpret thoroughly and accurately the Government to the people and the people to the Government".

Kitoye Ajasa became a Judge of the High Court of Lagos.

Kitoye Ajasa was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1924 Birthday Honours and was made a Knight Bachelor in the 1928 Birthday Honours.

Kitoye Ajasa's children included the Nigerian nationalist and feminist Oyinkan, Lady Abayomi.