In this interview by BOLA BADMUS, former Deputy National Chairman (South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, speaks on genuine Lagos indigenes, particularly in regard to the ethnic question that dominated the state’s polity in the just-concluded general election.
The 2023 general election has come and gone, but in Lagos, the question of the people who own Lagos came up. What do you make of the matter? Who are the people that actually own Lagos?
To me, a bona fide Lagosian is either from Awori, who are the original settlers. Those Awori people lived in Isale-Eko, which is the real Lagos, you know.
When the Portuguese came in the 1600s, the Aworis were here. They (the Aworis) were the original settlers. They had an Oba (I can’t remember now whether it was Dosunmu). After the slave trade, they had blacks who were repatriated back from Bahia, in Brazil. They told them that those who wanted to go back were free to do so. The same thing happened in the Americas. Those in Mississippi, Alabama, who wanted to go back, they came and some came to Lagos.
Some of them were sent to Ghana, which was then called Gold Coast, and some others went to Sierra Leone. The first college in Africa, Fourah Bay College, you will remember, came into being around that time. Some who came from Sierra Leone, who were called the Sarro people, also came. Those people settled around Olowogbowo, near UTC, in the Ofin area. They mixed with the Aworis, who were the original settlers. They settled the Sarro people around there.
Then you have the Popo Aguda. They are Catholics. You know, the Brazilians, some of the West-Indies, who were Catholics, also came and settled around Bamgbose and Igbosere, near the Catholic Cathedral. So, you now had three major settlers – the Aworis, the Sarro and the Popo Aguda. Go to places like the City Hall, near the Bamgbose-Igbosere area, that is where you see people bearing Brazilian names like Cardozo.
My grandmother, the Koshoedos, they came from Bahia. Their father had three wives and separated them. Half of them stayed back in Bahia. He sent the other half back to Lagos and my grandmother, my father’s mother, was the youngest. She was followed by her elder sister. They established the Catholic area and the people living there were mainly Catholics. They all settled there. We have all the Brazilian names. They settled in that area. And those who are Anglicans, Methodists and all from Sierra Leone settled in Olowogbowo, Ofin, near UTC. And of course, Isale- Eko, all the way down towards Badagry were mainly Aworis.
So, Aworis extended beyond Isale-Eko.
Yes, even all the way to Somolu, to Alimosho, to Mushin and Osodi-Isolo. There was a time the Benin Oba invaded Lagos and defeated all the people and took over. But when the British came, they were able to flush them back. You now have this history of some Benin in Lagos, but the majority of the population are the Aworis. So, these were the original settlers of Lagos. When the British were here in the late 40s and early 50s writing their constitution, there was a move after the Amalgamation of 1914. They now said Lagos was a colony. It was like a country on its own until the British started saying they wanted to set up this region and all that.
The Lagos Colony was an independent place. What then happened was that the real Lagosians started kicking that Lagos should be as it was when it was a colony on its own. They didn’t want to be merged with the Western Region. The battle went on and on. I remember that the NCNC was the dominant political party then in Lagos because of the influence of Papa Herbert Macaulay. When he was there, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe met him and became his political son. So, they merged their political parties and the NCNC came up.
There were two constituencies in the real Lagos, not Lagos by Decree. It is real Lagos that we used to call it. In the then Lagos, you had just two constituencies comprising the Mainland, Ebute-Meta, Yaba and Lagos Island. In the 1959 election, when they contested, Lagos had Federal Constituencies, Lagos Island and the other constituency, the Mainland. T.O.S. Benson contested from the Mainland on NCNC ticket and Papa J.N.J. Johnson contested on the Island. They both won that election on NCNC ticket because of the influence of Herbert Macaulay.
I remember that the then Oba of Lagos, Oba Adeniji Adele, was a strong Action Group man and he wanted Lagos to be merged with the West and there was so much hues and cry, with people shouting, ‘Gedegbe l’Eko wa, ko s’osi. We are not merging with anybody; we want to stay the way we are’. And so it was until General Gowon created more states from four regions to make 12 states. That was how Lagos State came to be. And before then, the whole area that we know as Ajegunle, all the way to Badagry, to Alimosho, to Mushin, even to Idi-Araba used to be Western Region. The Western Region boundary was then at Idi- Oro, in Mushin. And, you know, the whole of Fadeyi, Somolu, Bariga, down to Ikorodu, to Ibeju-Lekki were Western Region. Ibadan, all the way to Delta belonged to the Western Region.
But when General Gowon came and created 12 states, Lagos State was among the new states. Then parts of Western Region contiguous to Lagos were made part of the new state. So, we used to crack jokes that ‘you are all Lagos by decree’.
And today, a lot of people from across the country live and earn their living in Lagos and as such, they are referred to as Lagosians…
You see, that is the beauty of Lagos. I told you about all these small islands, and Lagos lagoon and small areas are not wide enough. Where is the land for farming? But because the Portuguese came on the Marina, the ports were where the people were doing their trading and commerce. That has been the major source of income for Lagosians. On its own, this issue of discrimination is alien. Once you come in and you have something to sell, we buy and you make your money. If you want to settle, we are quick to say ‘well, settle and keep bringing your goods’. Look at the malams, they were bringing their cattle. We don’t rear any cattle here.
All the other people from the hinterland were bringing their fresh agricultural produce here for sale. Those who were buying clothing and weavers from Ogun State were bringing all these adires and all that and Lagos became the centre of trade and that is how we made our money.
For all people from Cotonou, and West Africa generally, Lagos is the centre of commerce. That is what has developed Lagos and so we don’t generally discriminate. But like they would say in Yoruba, a mora wa, ti ijakadi ko! Apart from Lagos, the other state that is accommodating in terms of culture and commerce in this country is Kano. The two city-states used to be towns.
We have a saying in Lagos: ‘Ti oju ko ba ti Eyin Igbeti, oju ko ni ti Eko.’ Where is Eyin Igbeti? The end of Marina. You know where the port is and where the goods used to come in. All these goods coming from abroad are being sold there. Even up to today, you will see traders there. In fact, all the roads are now occupied by traders, and the government makes money when the traders pay their taxes and levies. As long as buying and selling go on, we make our money. We like our lifestyle, we don’t hassle anybody. Once it is weekend, you want to drink your beer and enjoy yourself.
Over the years, according to perceptions, people from outside Lagos have been coming to lord it over actual Lagosians. Are the original Lagosians not feeling threatened?
The state that has the highest income in terms of physical cash is Lagos. Why? We don’t do agriculture here, everything we buy is brought from the hinterland. Everybody wants to bring their goods to Lagos to make money. And while making your money, you pay your tax, you pay your dues.
When we allow people to trade and make money here, it is not that we are being petty, it is just the accepting culture of Lagosians; we welcome people. One thing I need to tell you is that in certain parts of Lagos, we have a concentration of non-indigenes. If you go to the Central Mosque in Lagos, right from the time I was born, we have had the Hausa settlers there, on Nnamdi Azikiwe Street, Lagos Island. Go to Agege that used to be part of the old Western Region and now part of Lagos, you also have a large concentration of Hausas there.
If you go to Idi-Ara, you have a concentration of Hausa/Fulani. And if you go to Amuwo Odofin in Festac, Ojo and Alaba Market, you find large concentration of Igbos there. In Festac, you find a mixture of Delta and Igbo people. If you come down to Ajegunle, you find a lot of Igbo people living there.
Now, on this belt in Ibeju going to Lekki, and going to Epe, you also find a lot of Igbos living there, doing their trading. Also in Computer Village, Ikeja, you find them there. It doesn’t mean that our people are not there but I don’t see why, as a Lagosian, anybody who wants to contest in that settlement should be prevented from doing so. This is a democratic dispensation. It is all about the people’s decision. I remember a certain occasion here in my office here. Igbo leaders came, Hausa/Fulani leaders came and I told them, like in Agege, that ‘you are in the majority there, bring out a representative of your tribe to contest because those who would be voting there are Hausa/Fulani’. Those in the Igbo-concentrated areas, I told them to bring out a representative from amongst them. That is why we had some Igbo representatives and some Hausa people who also won election in those areas where they are in the majority. So, why should we be discriminating? What is democracy? It is about the people. The Igbo have not assumed such a population that we, Lagosians, would feel threatened about.
The people who are feeling threatened and making noise are Yorubas from the hinterland. Because we speak the same Yoruba, they even make jokes that the Yoruba we speak in Lagos is not the real Yoruba. What was more annoying is when people started saying that they lost out. Are you saying that this fellow who brought all this division, who said his name is Tinubu, is right? The original Tinubu in Kakawa, I grew up with them. They were even originally from Kogi. Papa Tinubu, the educationist, came from Kogi, and he built the first Muslim secondary school at No 1, Olusi Street on the Island, which is not too far from my family home. When you now want to start barring people because of their population in their own locality, and you say you cannot vote here, you cannot do this there, that is an illegality and it pains Lagosians.
Papa T.O.S. Benson contested in the Mainland before independence. Ikorodu, where he came from, was part of the Western Region, and he defeated Onitiri who was a real Lagosian. So, what we have seen is absolutely nonsensical. It is absolute insanity to say you cannot come and vote here. They pay their taxes here, they live here, they are not committing any crime and then you are telling them they cannot exercise their right, because you are what? You are not even from here. You might have come here from your village. You can’t find a genuine Lagosian doing that because right from when we were kids, in my area, we had had friends from all parts of Nigeria. We grew up together. They may be speaking their languages but they also speak Yoruba fluently like you and I. So, what are you talking about? They were not telling him they want to take over and people were spinning rubbish. Some people that I call spin doctors were writing rubbish, lies that they said they wanted to take over Lagos and control Nigeria. Who said that? If you go to Kano, the same thing; you have Yorubas. They have their own population. You also have the Igbo people. There is Igbo Union Grammar School in Kano. So, what is this madness?
From your explanation, it appears that true Lagosians are still marginalised.
There is no doubt about it.
How do you think the problem can be addressed and what exactly is the source of the problem? Why have the real Lagosians not ome together to address the matter by speaking with one voice?
You see, it is not an assimilated culture for us to say this is my father’s compound and this belongs to my father and you start grandstanding. We are too civilised to do that. We don’t discriminate but don’t take that as being foolish. Some of our elders have sold us out. We are told this man used to tell people that when you throw corns on the floor, that people are like chickens; that they would start picking them. It is an insult. I am not joking, some of those characters, if I take them to Lagos Island, they can’t find their way out. If I take them into Lagos Island, without a taxi or some other help, they cannot get out of the place. When they came, where did they stay? I am not bragging but if I take Bola Tinubu into Lagos Island, without the help of a driver or somebody, he can’t get out. That is a measure of Omo Onile. It is our home. We have a saying in Yoruba that goes: Omo Onile a te jeje, ajoji nnko, a te jau jau. Let them respect our norms here. Let them respect our culture here.
If there was a pandemic in town, they used the Oro or did sacrificial things to appease the gods in the traditional way before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, you know. I felt really disgusted when on the eve of the election, we saw some people slaughtering a live goat in the open. This is 21st-century Lagos, where the first doctor, the first lawyer, the first accountant, among others, in this country came from. Is that what we are promoting? There was no pandemic in town but because you wanted to scare people from coming out to exercise their fundamental right, you embarked on that. I felt really disgusted.
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