Cote D'Voire | Think Yoruba First

Côte d’Ivoire’s Yoruba

The age-old Yoruba migration

The migration of Ejigbo people to Côte d’Ivoire dates back to 1902, when the first set of migrants were said to have arrived in Treichville, a suburb of Abidjan, named after Marcel Treich-Laplène (1860 –1890), a Frenchman who was the first explorer of Côte d’Ivoire and its first colonial administrator.
Historically, before the discovery of Côte d’Ivoire as a hub of trade, the Ejigbo migrants then first settled in the republics of Benin, Togo and Ghana.
They were said to have traded in local clothing such as ‘kita’ (originally a fabric worn by the royal family or by notable people on special occasions) as well as farm produce, since the major occupations of the Ejigbo people are farming and hunting.
“My grandfather was one of the early migrants,” said Alhaji Adekunle Bashiru, one of the executives of Ejigbo Parapo in Côte d’Ivoire and Chairman, Nigerians in Adjame, Côte d’Ivoire.
Bashiru said during the course of migration from Ejigbo, his grandparents first settled in Togo, where they gave birth to his father in the Atakpamé city of the country.
Located on a hilly wooded savannah on the eastern end of the Atakora Mountain range, Atakpamé and Kpalimé were said to have represented the last major settlements of the Yoruba migrants whose presence could be found between the Niger and the Volta rivers.

My grandfather was one of the early migrants,”
Alhaji Adekunle Bashiru

Located on a hilly wooded savannah on the eastern end of the Atakora Mountain range, Atakpamé and Kpalimé were said to have represented the last major settlements of the Yoruba migrants whose presence could be found between the Niger and the Volta rivers.

As Togo was getting saturated, the Ejigbo migrants in the country got wind of the financial successes those in Côte d’Ivoire were recording, hence they journeyed to Abidjan, a trade centre in the country.

“My father was among those who arrived in Abidjan in the 1930s,” Bashiru told our correspondent. “Since there was no development in Ejigbo, going back was difficult for them. They traded here and sent money to their families in Nigeria.”

By 1960, when Côte d’Ivoire got independence from its French colonial masters, the country was described as one of the most prosperous in West Africa, contributing over 40 per cent of the region’s total exports.