Life before colonization was culture filled and dominated by Kings and Monarchs appointed by the Ifa Oracle or the king appointing deity of your town or village, things happen as there was no sense of colour racism, people farmed, made artifacts, made fresh palm wine, made art and there was charm and no looking down on it authenticity and all deities are respected as they're their little gods even though they solely believe in Eledumare(God) the creator too.  

           Generally, life isn't all sweet and less bitter it always finds a way to equalise it, it was a peaceful-non-peaceful era before colonization. Life in Nigeria was already evolving even before colonization, the Benin Kingdom already had street lights constructed in their roads from centuries back, the same Benin kingdom already had the great wall of Benin even before China did and this wowed the colonialists as they did not believe such magnitude of a thing could be done in such a local continent and even the Oyo people (Oyo ile) weren't left out as they were also evolving politically way before civilization as they already had the council of Oyomesi a cabinet that appoints the king on the throne and also dismisses him.

           We lived in love but  kings ruled shabbily and this was the flaw we had that made the colonialists circulate as they figured we had that as an issue.  Kings would behead slaves and even encourage slave trade to wealthy merchant from neighbouring villages and ruled without control, not all kings were bad but majority was and poor people were victims as they had no voice of their own, hungry theives punished for stealing food if not beheaded as stealing was hated but food wasn't circulating.   Even in all that we would have evolved on a larger modern pattern on our own but the deed happened.  

Olabanji ✍️

A.K .A (Englishman)