Obadiah Johnson

Who was Obadiah Johnson?

Dr. Obadiah Johnson born in Freetown, Sierra Leone was a Creole who was the second Nigerian to qualify as a medical doctor, and the author with his brother the Reverend Samuel Johnson of A History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate.

Johnson was of a liberated African or recaptive family that was originally from Nigeria and claimed to be an Omoba of the Kingdom of Oyo. Obadiah was the second Nigerian ever to qualify as a medical doctor. Although this achievement of his was a milestone in history, he became famous only for tackling another monumental undertaking. In 1897, his older brother, the Reverend Samuel Johnson completed a major work on the history of the Yorubas but, in Dr. Johnson's own words, "A singular misfortune...befell the original manuscripts of this history, in consequence of which the author never lived to see in print his more than 20 years of labour." The manuscripts were sent to an English publisher in London, England, through a missionary society, in 1899 but, "nothing more was heard of them".

In 1900, Johnson visited England and called on the publisher who told him he misplaced the manuscripts and, "that they could not be found, and that he was prepared to pay for them." Although Dr. Johnson smelt a rat immediately, he and his brother decided to "let the subject rest there." The original author, Samuel Johnson, died a year later on 29 April 1901. Thus, Dr. Obadiah Johnson had "to rewrite the whole history anew from the copious notes and rough copies left behind by the author".