Alaafin’s ‘420-year-old’ tortoise is dead — but how old was Baba really?

Gloria Adesanya 14:09 - 18 September 2026

Baba, the tortoise believed to be 420 years old, at the Alaafin of Oyo’s Palace in Oyo

Baba, the tortoise believed to have lived for about 420 years, at the Alaafin of Oyo’s Palace. PHOTO: PUNCH

Baba was said to have lived through generations of Alaafins and was regarded as a living piece of Oyo’s history. But there is one big question about the tortoise: was he really 420 years old?

Baba, the tortoise believed to be 420 years old, has died at the Alaafin of Oyo’s Palace.

The palace traced Baba’s history to Oyo-Ile and successive Alaafins.

But was Baba really 420 years old? Here’s what science and Guinness records show.

For centuries, generations of people came and went; kings ruled Oyo, and the ancient kingdom changed around them. But Baba, a giant tortoise believed to be 420 years old, remained.

That would mean the tortoise was already alive centuries before modern Nigeria existed. It would also make Baba more than twice as old as Jonathan, the Seychelles giant tortoise recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living tortoise.

Now Baba is dead, leaving behind a remarkable story and a much bigger question: how old was he really?

Baba died on Monday after reportedly falling ill and stopping eating, according to Bode Durojaiye, Director of Media and Publicity to the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade I. The tortoise was later buried at the palace.

Bode Durojaiye, Director of Media and Publicity to the Alaafin of Oyo

According to the palace, Baba was not simply an animal kept around the royal residence. He was regarded as a living piece of Oyo’s history.

Oral history traced his origin to Oyo-Ile, the ancient capital of the old Oyo Empire, before he was reportedly brought to the present palace in Oyo town. If the palace estimate were accurate, Baba would have been born around 1606.

Successive Alaafins cared for Baba, and the current monarch reportedly met him already living at the palace. Two palace officials were assigned to look after him, while his reported diet included watermelon, corn pap wrapped in leaves and grass.

Alaafin of Oyo

Baba eventually became a tourist attraction. People visited the palace to see the tortoise whose enormous reported age had become part of his identity.

The palace called him an “ageless companion” and said he represented part of the oral history of the Yoruba people. His name, Baba, meaning “father” in Yoruba, also carried the respect attached to his supposed age.

However, the more you think about Baba’s age, the more complicated the story gets.

Firstly, no birth record or publicly available scientific evidence establishes that Baba was 420 years old. The figure comes from the palace’s oral history and its account of Baba surviving through generations of Alaafins.

Secondly, biology gives us a tangible reason to be wary. Tortoises are among the longest-lived vertebrates on Earth.

Scientists have documented exceptionally slow ageing in many turtle and tortoise species, and giant tortoises can live well beyond a century. But the documented figures are nowhere near 420 years.

The Guinness World Records currently lists Jonathan as the oldest turtle or chelonian at 194 years old in 2026. He is believed to have been born around 1832, and his age is supported by historical evidence showing that he was already fully mature when he arrived on St Helena in 1882.

Jonathan the tortoise explores his spacious grounds outside Plantation House, the official governor's residence on Saint Helena.

Jonathan, the world's oldest tortoise, explores the official governor's residence on Saint Helena.

For comparison, the African spurred tortoise, a species found in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, generally lives around 50 to more than 100 years, according to the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in France.

African spurred tortoise

That does not prove exactly how old Baba was. His species has not been independently established in the available reports, and tortoise longevity varies considerably between species.

But it does put the 420-year claim into a different light because there is no verified tortoise lifespan remotely close to Baba’s reported age.

Baba’s story is also strikingly similar to that of another famous Nigerian palace tortoise, Alagba.

In 2019, Alagba, a tortoise at the palace of the Soun of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, died after being widely reported as 344 years old.

Yet even that age was an estimate. Toyin Ajamu, then Soun’s private secretary, told Punch that nobody had been present when Alagba was brought to the palace. The palace had calculated the tortoise’s age from the period when the Soun believed to have brought it to the palace.

Alagba’s remains were eventually embalmed and preserved for visitors.

The episode also showed how easily extraordinary claims about Nigerian palace tortoises can become detached from evidence. In 2019, Africa Check found that a photograph widely circulated online as Alagba was actually not the Ogbomoso tortoise.

No Guinness World Record exists for Baba or Alagba. What can be documented, however, is their importance to the communities that cared for them.

For the Alaafin’s Palace, Baba represented continuity. He was said to have survived successive kings and connected present-day Oyo with memories of the old kingdom.