We have chanced upon the story behind the first person who owned a bakery in Nigeria.
The man is known as Amos Shackleford and this was shared in a post made by the popular Instagram blog, Yoobapedia and it reads;
“Amos Shackleford is believed to be the first bakery owner in Nigeria. He was born in 1887 in the maroon community of Charles town in Jamaica. In 1913 jobs on the Nigerian Railway were advertised in Jamaica, Shackleford took the opportunity offered and left for West Africa.
He briefly left for Jamaica and returned to Lagos early in 1918 as head clerk at the Nigerian-owned lumber company, S Thomas and Co.
About that time Shackleford, with the help of his wife, went into business, he set up a bakery on a small domestic scale. This business flourished, and Shackleford introduced new production and marketing methods.
The business expanded into other Nigerian towns, and in the 1930s into the Gold Coast. He became known as the ‘Bread King’. His bread would regularly be delivered to Agege in Lagos, until services were disrupted by independence. It was on this legacy that Alhaji Ayokunnu set up his own bakery, called Agege Bread.
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