John Augustus Abayomi Cole was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1848 to parents originally from Sierra Leone. His exposure to many African cultures made him identify himself as a proud West African. He lived in Liberia for a while where he developed a strong devotion and love for Pan-Africanism.

Much of his works are hidden in in-depth academic records which need to be exposed to the everyday African. Nothing extensive is written about this intelligent African herbalist, farmer, politician and doctor who later worked as an affiliate of the National Association of Medical Herbalists in the United Kingdom playing a significant role in the Malaria epidemic that broke out in the 19th century…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

When he was four years old, John’s parents moved back to Freetown, Sierra Leone, for unknown reasons. He was educated in Freetown until he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine from the Fourah Bay College in Freetown.

Shortly after his graduation, John taught for a while until moving to U.S.A in his mid-20s. In the U.S.A, John played a significant role in helping freed West African slaves to return to Sierra Leone through a petition he sent to the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The West Africans successfully arrived in 1889. Soon after, John would leave the church due to the various problems he had with Christianity and Religion.

He continued his medical education in the U.S.A.  where he became a medical doctor and a Fellow of the Society of Apothecaries (F.S.A.)

After many readings in theology and philosophy, John moved back to Sierra Leone where he set up his own religious movement in 1905. The church was known as the African Chruch called the Gospel Mission Hall where many traditional Africans started to worship.

While practising medicine, John became interested in indigenous healing techniques using African herbs and would later become a famous farmer growing various herbs and plants for medicinal purposes.

John Cole became the most sought-after doctor and herbalist in West Africa appointed as a medical and scientific advisor to the then Governor Sir Leslie Probyn, the administrator of the British Empire sent to work in West Africa. He also worked as an affiliate with the National Association of Medical Herbalists in the United Kingdom travelling there as and when he was physically needed.

John Cole found a way to combine is knowledge of traditional healing practices and modern medicine to find cures for skin and eye diseases and rheumatic pain. Whites and Blacks from all over West Africa travelled to Sierra Leone to see the great herbalist. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

One of his most significant works will be the invention of the ‘tea-bush’ made of camphor, lime and spirit used to cure the flu during the 1918 flu pandemic in West Africa. Dr Cole also prepared a popular antidote for poison known as ‘Ekpe’ which is still used in Sierra Leone.

Dr John Augustus Abayomi Cole was appointed by the Colonial Government to help find a cure for Malaria when it became a drastic taker of lives, mainly the Whites living in West Africa. The successful herbalist managed to prepare a herb mixture which he gave to his patients who would later return after a few weeks with the same symptoms.

Worried about the Malaria epidemic, he set up an organisation to work with volunteers who became known as the “mosquito missionaries”. The volunteers were sent to the houses of the locals and Whites across West Africa with the help of the colonial government.

The research indicated that Malaria was as a result of poor sanitation and mosquitos breeding in stagnant waters in the houses. The volunteers were then sent back to advise the people on how to live, a move that reduced people dying from Malaria drastically. Impressed by his work, the Colonial Government paid all the volunteers per the number of months they worked.

Aside from his extensive work in medicine, Dr Cole produced various academic writings on traditional African practices, his most read paper was the “Philosophy of Paganism,” which he wrote in 1904. He was also very popular in the Political scene and inspired the establishment of many pressure groups in Sierra Leone.

For his great work, John Cole was decorated with the insignia of Knight Commander of the Liberian Order of African Redemption in 1914  and awarded an honorary doctorate by the College of Liberia 1926.

He is described as a talented man with a forever young look. He died at the age of 93 in 1942.

Chief S.L. Akintola was slated to give a victory speech after the rigged 1965 regional election which returned him to power as Premier of the Western Region.

On 15 October 1965, just before a radio broadcast of the Premier’s speech, a certain armed man allegedly gained entrance into the premises of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) at Ibadan, and seized the tapes containing the Premier’s pre-recorded speech.

The armed man, alleged to be Wole Soyinka, then compelled the continuity announcer to broadcast another tape which he had brought along with him. Instead of the triumphant address of the Premier, the people of Western Nigeria heard, inter alia, the following defiant message…Click Here To Continue Reading>> …Click Here To Continue Reading>>

“Akintola get out; Akintola, get out and take with you your band of renegades who have lost with you any pretence to humanity, and have become nothing, but murdering beasts. . . .

The lawful government of Western Nigeria is the UPGA government, elected by the people of the West. Let every self-seeking impostor get out now before the people, losing patience, wash the streets in their polluted blood. . . .

In the name of Oduduwa and our generation, get out! Before the frustration of ten million people, their anger and their justice in an all-consuming fire come over your heads.”

This incident embarrassed and angered the Premier, and Wole Soyinka was swiftly declared wanted, detained, and subsequently charged with the offences of conspiracy and theft of the Premier’s tapes.

Soyinka’s detention caused many influential literary figures and public intellectuals to lodge protests and appeals for clemency with the Nigerian government.

Although Soyinka unsuccessfully raised an alibi, at trial the prosecution failed to secure a conviction due to the conflicting testimony of several witnesses concerning the identity of the armed man.

According to Justice Kayode Eso (as he then was), who presided over the trial, the proper course of action in the circumstances was to acquit and discharge the accused person.

Resisting pressure from powerful Western region politicians who wanted Soyinka convicted at all costs, Justice Eso held as follows: “All the eye-witnesses [at the radio station] were positive that the [armed] man who held them up was not masked. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

The place was well lit, they said, and they had no doubt about their examination of the gunman’s face. The gunman, they had all said, was bearded.

[One of the witnesses who gave evidence for the prosecution testified that Soyinka, whom he saw two hours before the incident at the radio station, was clean-shaven].

While l can understand a bearded man at five o’ clock in the evening becoming clean-shaven at 7 p.m., I cannot unravel the mystery of a clean-shaven man at 5 p.m. becoming bearded at 7 p.m. [when the incident occurred] except he is somehow masked.

And the overwhelming evidence placed before the court by the prosecution itself, was that the gunman, who held up the cubicle that night was not masked. That ‘un-masking’ kept up recurring like a ‘recurring decimal’.

It is clear to me therefore, that no tribunal should be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it was the clean-shaven ‘Wole Soyinka’ at 5 p.m. without a mask who metamorphosed into the bearded gunman at 7 p.m.

With this sharp contradiction in the evidence of the prosecution, I am bound to give the accused person the benefit of the doubt. I therefore find him not guilty and he is, accordingly, acquitted and discharged.”

Reflecting on this incident several decades later, in 2019, Soyinka recalls that he was strongly motivated to intervene in the old Western Region Crisis on behalf of the disenfranchised people whose democratic rights had been frustrated by brazen electoral fraud:

“I was one of them, my voice was being stolen. I could not sit down and accept that somebody should steal my voice. I felt at one with the majority of the people.”