Truly, the real and proper Lagos is irretrievably of the past.

Eko
in her original and delectable complexity, yet innocent simplicity
is gone and lost and can no longer be regained. For Lagos was
complex in its multiciplity of peoples, ingenious access by various
individuals to its economic possibilities, unique cultural
potentialities but its social expressions made these various
communities that defined Eko to find it easy to live, to enjoy life
and to attain fulfilment of living virtually like nowhere else on this
planet. We can only recollect and reminisce. Whenever we try to
recall the Lagos we have lost, we are talking of Lagos Island,
Eko. Anything beyond is either Oke Odo i.e. Iddo, Otto, Ijora,
Oyingbo, Ebute Meta, Yaba, Idi-Oro (all these beyond Idunmota,
after the Carter Bridge), Agege and all the way to Ilu Oke. As
children in the forties, we crossed the Carter Bridge only once in
a year, on Easter Monday to celebrate with cousins who lived at
Oyingbo and whom we would not set our eyes upon until the
next Easter Monday. Beyond the Five Cowries Bridge is Ikoyi
where the colonialists lived and Obalende contiguous to the part
of Ikoyi where we buried our dead; and of course, there is also
Apapa, a place we did not know if any people lived there.

Eko was socially unique and totally self-sufficient. Those places

beyond the lagoons (ikoja osa) were the suburbs that Lagos
could very well and indeed did without. They were truly
subordinate to Lagos for their very existence whilst we lived in
Lagos as if they never existed. We lost Lagos with the advent of
the independence of Nigeria from British rule. Funny enough, we
were the only colony whilst the rest of the country was a
protectorate of the British Crown. The peoples of the protectorate
who by sheer numbers and nothing else dominated the political
terrain of Nigeria pursued a pre-independence political
programme of conspiracy of denial on us and claimed effectively
 to their possession and political control Lagos and permanently
deprived the people of the glorious Island of any political and
economic self-identity. Thus was lost gradually the social
character and self-identity that was peculiar to the Island.

The Lagosians

Lagos Island was a truly metropolitan habitat for many and

different peoples from the various continents of the world. The
Lagosians were a cosmopolitan people, yet many Lagosians had
never stepped beyond the island. It was a curious, unique and
exciting mixture of opposites. Everybody, as it were, was there.
And they all were comfortable to various degrees. No matter your
economic plight in the course of living, you never came to Lagos
and ever dream of returning home. Indeed, we have a saying,
“Eko gb’ole, o gb’ole.” It is very convenient to classify
Lagosians into two groups:

% The Lagosians who do not have any other home or place to call
their homes on this planet
% Contemporary migrants who earn their livelihood in Lagos but
still go home to their places of origin annually at festival
periods to their kith and kin.

The Lagosians in the first group are in four subgroups:

% The Aworis who live in Isale Eko; they are the majority
population of Lagos.
% The Brazilian descendants who live in the Brazilian quarters

% The Saro descendants whose ancestors came from Freetown in

Sierra Leone and live at Olowogbowo, Apongbon and
Breadfruit area of the Island

% The children born in Lagos of migrants whether from the

Nigerian hinterland (Ilu Oke) or the West African coastline
countries of Dahomey, Gold Coast, Togoland, Liberia and
Ivory Coast (Aganyins, Ajases and Kurumos). Their parents
still went home periodically but these Lagos children did not
have the opportunity to acquire any familiarity with the
place of origin of their parents. Their first language is
Yoruba Eko although they were also articulate in the mother
tongue of their parents.

In the second group are peoples from various parts of the world,
awon iru wa, ogiri wa. They live and work in Lagos, contribute
immensely to the social life of the island, but they still go home
at festival periods. They invariably return finally to their original
homes at retirement.

A good percentage of this group is the parents of the children

described above. They are:

· The Ara Oke people from the Nigerian hinterland, particularly

Ilorin, Oyo, Ilesa and Ogbomoso. They live in areas of the island,
Okepopo, Oko Awo and Oke Arin where they sell their
merchandise, usually items of food, yam, plantain and vegetables
from their home territories. Later, many of them switched to
retail imported small building materials, which they buy from the
European companies. There are also migrants from the lands of
the Igbo people, Urhobo, Ijaw, and Nupe. They are mainly
traders in food and other items of daily use that are invariably
brought from their places of origin although the Igbos deal in
imported European products.

· The Aganyins, Ajases and Kurumos had travelled into Lagos

along the great and ancient road skirting the West African
coastline and migrated from Ivory Coast, Liberia, Togoland, Gold
Coast and Dahomey. The Aganyins and Ajases live mainly at
Araromi and Lafiaji areas with a few of them spilling across the
lagoon to the adjacent fringe of Obalende. They are traders and
artisans including washer men and home helps. They are easily
identified with their shiny black and beautiful skin as well as the
decorative hair plaiting styles of their beautiful women.

· The Koras are the Syrians and Lebanese who with some
sprinkling of Indians dominate the textile trade business. They
live along Ereko and Victoria Streets stretching from Tinubu
Square through Ereko to Idunmota. Their shops are situated on
the street level floor of their residences. Although, they live a
segregated life from the Eko people, their children invariably
grow up speaking the Yoruba Eko.
· There were the British colonialists who only worked in the
colonial civil service with offices at Onikan, Broad Street and
Race Course. Some of their kith were the managers of British
shops and businesses that dotted the Marina and Broad Street.
They merely worked in Lagos, but they lived at Ikoyi.

· There were some young professionals of West Indian origin,

engineers, technicians and nurses who worked in the colonial
service, particularly in the electricity, public works and health
departments. They occupied the middle grade posts of those
departments. They lived in government quarters built in the
premises of the various operational units of the departments.

Although, these many peoples live in well-designated parts of the

island the compactness and smallness of the geography of Lagos
and the speed of local dissemination of popular information and
news ensured regular social interactions. The only fully and
socially segregated peoples were the British colonialists, their
private sector countrymen who all lived at Ikoyi, and to a lesser
extent, the Koras, Syrians, Lebanese and Indians who live at
Ereko and Idunmota. Otherwise, the Lagos people enjoyed
frequent opportunities and occasions to mix socially.

Taking A Walk Through Lagos.

The streets were few and we were able to walk from one end of
the island to the other. We should very conveniently commence
our walk through Lagos from Ita Tinubu, otherwise called Tinubu
Square. The dominant feature in this historic centre of Lagos is
the Supreme Court that was demolished in 1959 to give way for
the Central Bank of Nigeria in anticipation of the birth of the new
and independent country of Nigeria. I was very much pleased
to view a well-framed photograph of the Supreme Court
displayed in the lobby of the Nigerian High Commission at
Northumberland Avenue, Westminster, London when I
visited on Thursday 18 May 2006. As coincidence would
have it, five days later on Tuesday 23 May 2006, I was
approached by the author of this book Wale Akin and
requested to write this document on “The Lagos We Lost.”

There was no fountain at Tinubu Square. The fountain is a

present from the Kora community, the Syrians and Lebanese
shopkeepers of Ereko and Victoria Streets to Nigeria at
Independence in 1960. Before independence, Ita Tinubu was a
small circular space that served as an intersection of four Lagos
major roads: Bamgbose Street that runs in a north easterly
direction from beside the Ola-Iya family house which is today
preserved as a National monument to the Brazilian Quarters,
Broad Street that passed from the Secretariat, a one storey
colonial icon, headquarters of the Colonial Service of Nigeria that
was the tallest building in Lagos and ipso facto Nigeria and the
African Hospital and making a right angled loop to run westward
from Tinubu Square towards Breadfruit, Olowogbowo and
Apongbon, Victoria Street running from the square northwards to
Ereko, Idunmota and Carter Bridge, and Alli Street that angles
very acutely from Bamgbose Street to Ita Faji where we have an
old market, Oja Ita Faji and the Massey Hospital, the first
maternity in Nigeria. Important architectural landmarks on the
outer margin of Ita Tinubu are the Supreme Court, Kirsten Hall
that was the residence of Herbert Heelas Macaulay, a great icon
of the struggle for Nigerian independence and the Central Police
Station. These three and other less significant buildings were
demolished to provide space for the Central Bank.

The Marina runs in a generally parallel alignment to Broad Street

until we reach Olowogbowo where Broad Street impinges
perpendicularly to end on the Marina. The Marina’s main
attraction to Eko people were the ships that come in from the sea
to discharge and load at the Marina Quays situated at the
Apongbon end of the Marina where there was also the Customs
Department. There were no Apapa Quays then. The walkway of
the Marina also provided the strolling venue in the breezy
evenings for lovers. During the day, it was the home of the
departmental stores. I recall the biggest of them all, Kingsway
Stores that stretched all along Martins Street from the Marina to
Broad Street. Kingsway boasted the first ever-mechanical
escalator in Nigeria. It was a most fascinating attraction for
children who accompanied the older ones to the shops on
Saturdays. Later, UTC Stores at Apongbon and Leventis Stores
on the Marina also installed their own escalators. This technology
has disappeared from the Nigerian scene with the advent of
Nigerianisation of commercial businesses in independent Nigeria.
Other European owned commercial businesses in this commercial
sector of Lagos included Gottshalck, Paterson Zochonis, G B
Ollivant, specialised outfits such as Kingsway Chemists and of
course the always mighty UAC, a creation of the Lever Brothers.
Chellarams and J T Chanrai later joined these European outfits at
the Marina. These are owned by Indian merchants and had their
beginnings at Ereko Street and Victoria Street. At the point
where the Marina changed name, Broad Street ended on it in a
perpendicular fashion. And there, civilisation virtually stopped.
Contiguous northwards to this area of the major arteries of Lagos
are Apongbon, Olowogbowo and Breadfruit, which serve as the
residential area of the Saro descendants. They are mainly
Christians of the Church of England denomination. Some of them
are Methodists, some Baptists and a sprinkling are members of
the Unitarian denomination. Many of them worked as clerks in
the colonial service, shopkeepers and assistants in the
departmental stores whilst the women were teachers. The Saro
women were very strict disciplinarians. The fear of Mama Saro in
her long gown was the beginning of wisdom for children who had
them as neighbours.

We continue our walk along the Marina, which technically and

nominally ends where Broad Street abuts perpendicularly on it.
Still walking along the continuation of the street by the lagoon,
we get into Ebute Ero, the market area for foodstuffs brought in
from the hinterland, to Ebute Elefun the site of the traditional
jetty for canoes that ply between Lagos and Ajase (Porto Novo),
Agbadagiri (Badagry) and Ikorodu to arrive at Isale Eko, the
home of the Aworis who are mainly fishermen. They go fishing on
various sections of the lagoon. Lagosians prefer the lagoon fish
(eja osa) for their soup to the fish from the sea (eja okun). Some
of the Isale Eko people are of the Muslim faith but the majority
belong to the faiths of indigenous religion such as Ifa, Awo Opa,
and Egungun. Isale Eko is the most indigenous and least
developed part of Lagos. It is the seat of the Eleko of Eko, his
chiefs, and advisers constituting the sole traditional authority on
Lagos Island. The British accessed Lagos from Kosoko 1861 in
the course of a family struggle to the throne to create the Colony
of Lagos as the only true colony in the area that became the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Isale Eko, an area of narrow winding streets, in some places with
open drains (gutters) running through living areas, very
indigenous in essence and character gradually fades
demographically, socially and culturally through Okepopo and
Oshodi into the Brazilian Quarters. The Brazilian descendants
occupy a well laid out territory with the main streets being
Tokunbo, Bamgbose, Igbosere, Campbell, Odunlami,
Kakawa and Catholic Mission Streets. Regular cross
streets to provide a well-laid territory interlock these long
streets. Mainly of the Roman Catholic faith, there is also a
substantial Muslim population, all of them being
descendants of migrants from Salvador and other parts of
the State of Bahia in Brazil. The original returnees were
expert artisans: builders, masons, carpenters, iron
welders, painters who built the very unique architectural
masterpieces that remain a part of the pride of Lagos
today. Such buildings include the Holy Cross Cathedral,
Mosalasi Shitta Bey, Water House the first place in Lagos
to have potable water delivered mechanically by a
pumping machine, and that is the home of Candido da
Rocha a fabulously rich Brazilian immigrant. Many people in
the community used to go to the Water House to buy water. I
recall that we the children because of the whip he would carry
and apply to us whenever we passed in front of the door of Water
House feared Baba da Rocha. One of his daughters became my
grand aunt by marriage. The Roman Catholic faith, which was
built on the foundation of the immigrant Brazilians provides a
common base for the Brazilian descendants on one side and the
Aganyins, Ajases and Kurumos on the other who are the
immediate neighbours of the Agudas as the Brazilians are
referred to in Lagos parlance at Lafiaji where many Brazilian
families also have their home.