Ofinran
16th C. king of the Oyo empire in West Africa
Ofinran was a 16th-century king of the Oyo Empire in West Africa who succeeded Onigbogi as Alaafin after the latter had left for exile in Borgu with a few other Yorubas from Oyo. Ofinran was then made king in a foreign land and joined his host in expeditions around the Niger River and the two communities co-existed.
However, the favorable treatment of the Oyos in Borgu was short-lived. Hostilities soon emerged and Ofinran and his men decided to leave for a town called Kusu. In the process of their ill luck of being driven away from their original homes, they may have believed their problems was due to the unfavorable disposition they originally had towards the Ifá deity.
While in Kusu they embraced the Ifá divinity and called for a man named Alado to initiate the Alaafin and his subjects in order to wade away any ill wind related to their original rejection of Ifá. Also, according to Oyo fables, it was during this period that the Egungun festivities also emerged in Yorubaland. It was thought that the Egungun priest followed the Yorubas from Borgu into Kusu.
Ofinran later died and was buried in a palace in Saki.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ofinran” as 16th C. king of the Oyo empire in West Africa. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7079735. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ofinran” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.