Oba Esigie, the King of the Benin Kingdom from 1504 to 1550, made history as the first recorded Nigerian to speak a foreign language. He was said to have mastered Portuguese at a time when few ...

In 1485 Portuguese traders became the first Europeans to contact the kingdom of Benin, one of the oldest and most highly developed states in West Africa. Benin’s kings were known as obas, who ...

The Benins tell a different story; they believe Oba Orhogba founded Eko in the 1500s, bridging the relationship between Benin and Portugal. He expanded his empire, naming the land around the sea ...