[1] It is "fashioned after the traditional chess board to teach the history of Lagos" and built to commemorate the 170th memorial anniversary of the Bombardment of Lagos by the British naval forces.
[2][3] According to the inventor, Oludamola Adebowale,[4] the game was invented as a way to make history fun, after the subject was removed from the Nigerian educational syllabus in 2015.
[5] The idea for the game, he said, came while he was at the Lagos Book and Art Festival.
[6] The name Agidingbi is an onomatopoeia for the sounds made by the artillery guns that was fired by British forces on Lagos in 1851.
[7] The 1851 Agidingbi Chess Game has the traditional checkered board design, with pieces named after Lagos royalties and chieftains like Erelu- Kuti of Lagos as the Queen Mother, the Oba of Lagos as the king, the Adamu Eyo as the rook, Omo Ogun Eko as the pawn, Eletu-Odibo as the bishop and Abagbon as the knight.