Oluewu was the

Alaafin Alaafin, or ''The Owner of the Palace'' in the Yoruba language, is the title of the emperor of the medieval Oyo empire and present-day Oyo town of West Africa. He ruled the old Oyo Empire which extended from the present day Benin republic to Ni ...

(''emperor'') of the

Oyo empire The Oyo Empire was a powerful Yoruba empire of West Africa made up of parts of present-day eastern Benin and western Nigeria (including Southwest zone and the western half of Northcentral zone). It grew to become the largest Yoruba-speaking s ...

in northwestern

Yorubaland Yorubaland () is the homeland and cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo and Benin, and covers a total land area of 142,114 km2 or about 60% of the land area of Ghana. Of this ...

, West Africa, from 1833-1835. Oluewu was then bound to Shita, the Emir of Ilorin. However, he refused to embrace the

Islamic religion Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

and sought help from

Borgu Borgu is a region in north-west Nigeria and in the northern Republic of Benin. It was partitioned between Great Britain and France by the Anglo-French Convention of 1898. People of Borgu are known as Bariba or Borgawa. History According to the ...

to defeat the

Fulani The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...

s. Initially, he recorded some success in battle, but a final putsch to recover the northern part of Yorubaland from the Fulanis led to his death by Okedare lanloke and that of many of Oyo's leading nobles.

References

Alaafins of Oyo 19th-century Nigerian people 19th-century rulers in Africa {{Alaafins of Oyo