User:Moswento/Iwe Irohin

The Iwe Irohin Fun Awon Egba ati Yoruba (better known as the Iwe Irohin) was a Nigerian newspaper. It was first published on 3 December 1859. Originally, the newspaper featured information about the work of the Church Missionary Society alongside reporting of local events. It was the first newspaper printed in the Yoruba language. It was intended to "beget the habit of seeking information by reading".


 * , plus more on Questia


 * JSTOR
 * JSTOR2

Background
Iwe Irohin was established in 1859 in Abeokuta, a settlement in south-west Nigeria populated by various displaced people groups, including the Egba people. Its founder was Henry Townsend from the Church Missionary Society (CMS), who had led a group of Christian missionaries to settle in Abeokuta with the aim of encouraging freed slaves who had moved there from Sierra Leone to continue in their faith. The missionaries also established schools and trained people in new trades such as carpentry and bricklaying. The printing of Iwe Irohin was a connected initiative.

The Iwe Irohin is often credited as being the first newspaper printed in Nigeria. Other printing presses had been in operation in the area for over a decade, and may have attempted to produce newspapers or similar publications, but the Iwe Irohin was the first to appear as a consistent periodical.

History
The paper was printed on a hand-operated printing press that Townsend had acquired from his brother.

Initially, the newspaper was run by European staff. It is probable that Henry Townsend remained its editor until he returned to England in 1861. Townsend also took on apprentices from the technical school set up by CMS, one of whom Townsend wanted to send to England to further his studies as he was so proficient. According to Increase Coker, author of Landmarks of the Nigerian Press, the Iwe Irohin had a local African editor by 1865.

When it was first published, the newspaper was four pages long and written in the Yoruba language. In 1865, an English supplement was added. The price was 120 cowries. It had a small circulation.

The Iwe Irohin had ceased publication by 1867. Multiple factors contributed to this.

The newspaper was in a weak position financially, due to the low cover price and small circulation. In the 1860s, many missionaries also moved to Lagos, which had become a Crown colony in 1861 and thereford offered more security than Abeokuta, especially due to ongoing conflicts between the Egba people and the Dahomey kingdom.

As both European settlers and native Africans moved to Lagos, the readership and staff of the paper reduced in number.

Deteriorating Egba-British relations resulted in a movement in 1867 known as the Ifole, when the Egba population forced all Europeans to leave the area, prompting Christian converts to follow. The newspaper subsequently collapsed.

According to F. F. Alliu, the CMS headquarters in London instructed Townsend to end the newspaper, amid accusations from the Colonial Office that Townsend was using the paper to gain political power and was thus "aggravating the problems of British foreign policy".

Content
Oluwatoyin Oduntan has described the Iwe Irohin as "more a Christian newsreel than a newspaper". Part of each issue was dedicated to church news, including sermons, clerical appointments, missionary visits and baptisms.

The paper did, nevertheless, contain news of local events. Economic news was prominent in the paper, which contained a monthly table of the value of products traded in the area, such as palm oil and cotton, as well as the prices of slaves or wages paid to labourers. This information was used by both European and African traders. It also featured news from abroad, mostly from Europe, which was obtained from missionaries, other travellers, or from periodicals sent to Abeokuta by the London headquarters of CMS.

It also contained educational articles on history, geography and culture. These were a particular concern of Townsend, the founding editor, who had a desire to educate the local population in these areas.

Another regular feature was a column by missionaries giving their experiences of life in Abeokuta.

Legacy and impact
Oduntan has argued that the archives of the paper are a valuable source for historians studying events such as the Yoruba civil war or the tribal wars between the Egba and Dahomey people, as well as recording the changing relationship between British colonisers and the Egba population.

Oduntan has stated that it is not possible to assess the paper's impact on the Egba people, although he points to indicators that the people felt positively about the paper. Issues of the newspaper were held at the archives of the Egbaland royal residence until its destruction by fire in 1993. Egba writings contain positive references to the Iwe Irohin and its founder Henry Townsend. "The paper was very popular among the people, and has assumed folkloric status".

The newspaper was also important as a pioneering publication in the history of the media in Nigeria. Many of the key figures in early Nigerian newspaper development were Egbas, and in the twentieth-century the newspaper's legacy was felt in printing becoming a "cultural vocation". The street in Abeokuta where the paper was printed is still a centre for printing.

German missionary David Hinderer, who lived in Ibadan, was inspired by the newspaper to translate Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan into the Yoruba language in 1866.

Other newspapers in C19th Nigeria, also church-related: Iwe Irohin Eko (founded 1888) and Iwe Eko (founded 1891).

Others inspired by pioneering work of Iwe Irohin to establish newspapers and printing houses.