Have the Igbos forgotten History? By Gbile Oshadipe

According to Alhaji Lateef Femi Okunnu, Lagos indigene, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing under General Yakubu Gowon, the Aworis were the original settlers in Eko, called “Lagos” by Portugese adventurers. The “Idejo ” class of chiefs – Olumegbon, Oluwa, Oniru, Onisemo, Oloto, Aromire, Elegushi, Ojomu, Onikoyi, Onisiwo, Ojora, Onitolo, Onitana – were the landowning chiefs who along with their families and followers settled in different parts of Lagos and the environs in the 15th and 16th centuries. They were the original land owners of Lagos. Then came the Bini invasion. All the Obas of Lagos, starting from Oba Ado, were of Bini origin. So is Oba Alaiyeluwa Akiolu I, the present Oba of Lagos.

About 1790, Lagos was successfully invaded by the Benins. They did not remain in occupation, but left a representative as ruler whose title was the “Eleko”. According to H.A.B. Fasinro in Political and Cultural Perspectives of Lagos, the successive Elekos in the end became the kings of Lagos, although for a long time the sovereignty of the king of the Benins, and paid tribute to him.

I will continue to depend extensively on Alhaji Okunnu to establish the historiography of Lagos.

Okunnu reveals that: “The Benins appear to have had little interference with the customs and culture of the people. The Binis (Edos) who accompanied Ado to Lagos settled mostly in Isale Eko, in particular at Iduntafa, Idunmagbo, Idunshagbe, Idunmota, Idunmaigbo. The word “Idun” means “area”. The Akarigbere class of chiefs (or civil chiefs) are also of Bini origin. They are: Eletu Odigbo, Eletu Iwashe, Eletu Ika, Ologun Agbeje, Ologun Adodo, Eletu Awo, Ologun Agan, Ologun Atebo, Ologun Igbesodi, Ologun Ide Okoro.

So also are the Abagbon class of chiefs or war chiefs : Ashogbon, Bajulaiye, Saba, Bajulu and Bashua. They and their families have Benin blood flowing in their veins and arteries. Incidentally, the installation of an Oba of Lagos, as well as that of each white-capped Chief of Lagos, bears the hall mark of the installation of the Oba of Benin. The ceremony at Enuowa tells eloquently the Benin heritage. The installation of the Obi of Onitsha bears similar heritage.”

Another set of original settlers in Lagos were the “Nupe” or “Tapa” from present day Niger State. They settled at Idunshagbe, Ita Agarawu, Oko Awo, and most especially at Ita Oshodi, popularly called Epetedo. The Oshodi Family is of Tapa origin. Successive Chief Imams of Lagos are Nupe; so also are many prominent families in Lagos. And the Brazilian Quarters! The Pereira, Marinho, Da Silva, Sho Silva, Salvador, Ramos, Peregrino, Ferreira, Agusto, Pinheiro, Campos, Da Rhocha, Da Costa, Gonzalez, Martins, Vera Cruz and Pedro families – all returnees from Brazil in the early 18th centuries whose ancestors were taken into slavery mostly from Yoruba land and Dahomey (Benin Republic). They settled mostly at “Popo Aguda” or Brazilian Quarters in Lagos Island. The “Portoqui” or Aguda (as they are called) brought “Kareta” festival at Easter to Lagos as well as “Brazilian” architecture
There are the Saros especially from Free Town in Sierra Leone – Savage, Williams, Carew, Caulcrick and Cole families, among many others. They settled at Olowogbowo area of Lagos. The Saros were immigrants from Sierra Leone either as descendants of slaves from Cuba or Brazil, or freed slaves who first settled at Free Town in Sierra Leone and then emigrated to Lagos. There were waves of Yoruba settlers also at Ago “Ijaiye”, Ijesha Tedo, Agodo Egba, Agidingbi, Shomolu and such other areas of Lagos will testify. And of course, the Ijebus in Epe and Ikorodu. And the “Eguns” in Badagry. All of them were original settlers of Lagos State. All these people, and more, make up Lagos. They are the “Lagosians”.

It has often been said that Lagos is a Yoruba state because Yoruba is the common language among its people, notwithstanding the fact that there is a large percentage of its people whose ancestral languages were Bini or Tapa. The same argument can be said for millions of Fulanis in Sokoto State or Adamawa, Gongola, Kano or Katsina State who are no less Fulani in origin just because the common language of these Fulanis in those states is Hausa, and not Fulani. The Binis and the Tapa, the Potoki (Brazilians) and the Saros have adopted Yoruba as their common language in the same way as the Fulanis have adopted Hausa.

As we are all aware, Lagos State was the first British Colony established in 1861 in modern-day Nigeria, followed by the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria in 1900. Lagos Colony, including Ikeja, Epe and Badagry divisions remained under a separate administration from the two Protectorates or three Regions (1946 – 51) until 1951.

Governor Gilbert Thomas Carter, one of the longest serving governors had his name given to Carter Bridge. Carter was a naval officer who joined the British colonial service and was appointed Governor and Commander in Chief of Lagos Colony on 3 February 1891 and served until 1897. The Carter Bridge was finished in 1901 by the government of the Crown Colony of Lagos from the revenue and income of the colony. Carter started the bridge five years before its final opening. The foundation having been laid by the Colony of Lagos continued when Lagos was joined with the southern protectorate and later into Nigeria until 1933. There was a tram service with its accompanying infrastructure which is evidence of the increased importance and viability of the Lagos economy. This mass transport system moved people in Lagos and was indeed a sight to behold.

One such impressive and familiar figure on the tram; and owner of Manchester House (now part of the Marina end of Kingsway Stores) was Zaccheus Archibald Williams, grandfather of Chief Rotimi Williams. Others were Dr. R.Z. Bailey, I.W. Cole and Mohammed Shitta-Bey who built the famous Shitta Bey Mosque in Martins Street.

In the 1950s and 60s, Lagos was a happy and safe place to live. It was a clean city, where people stroll the streets unmolested, where children sail paper boats on free flowing rain water in clean drains, where houses and windows had no burglary proofing and no high security walls.

Lagos remains a place where the traditional notions of kinship and relational ties are challenged, thus debunking the wrong assertions that Lagosians are tribalists. More than any state in the federation, Lagos provides, encourages and indeed enables non-indigenes to become members in their assemblies, parastatals and ministries. This is because of Yoruba cosmopolitanism, and an inherent inclusivity and goodness to other Nigerian tribes.

Banal as it may sound, how many Igbo states in Nigeria allow non-indigenes into their state assemblies and local governments, their parastatals, or give access to free education and general welfare of the people?

While there is a relationship between ethnicity and political identity, historical dynamics are invoked when ethnicity and politics are bound together, especially in a place like Lagos, which is the melting pot of Nigeria.

Following in the footsteps of Obafemi Awolowo, many Yoruba have strong nationalist ideology and focus on harnessing the Yoruba heritage of an inclusive society that carry along other sub-ethnicities. Much as they recognize their deep ancestral ties through illustrious lineages, a genealogy dating into time and history, and a constructive identity, the Yoruba abhor primordial tendencies and clannish aspirations.

Note that Nigeria operates the American-type democracy, but does not encourage the type of liberal citizenship for all people to become automatic residents in Nigerian states. In other words, you can be born and bred in Lagos, but your state of origin is still tied to ethnic identities.

Nigeria is home to over 250 clearly defined ethnic groups, and used to thrive by our variety and diversity. The diversity sustained Nigeria’s stature with Lagos as the defining example. Take for example, the influx of people to Lagos after the Nigerian Civil War that led to disastrous effects. The infrastructure and public health facilities were overstretched. But when Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande became the civilian Governor of Lagos State in 1979 he went about solving the myriad of problems on infrastructure. He started free education at all levels, free health delivery service, the Integrated Rural Development Scheme, and the Low Cost Housing Scheme of which all were beneficiaries. He never discriminated against other ethnic nationalities. Indeed, he was a visionary leader.

The readiness of Yoruba people to accept others and make them belong is now the genesis and source of discord in Lagos, which if not quickly nipped in the bud, will lead to irreconcilable differences or outright physicality. Because of this diversity, there is the growth and manifestation of contempt for indigenous Lagosians, just like the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants did to Native and Indigenous Americans. It is exactly what the Make America Great Again, MAGA narcissists of President Trump are doing in the United States. Whether Ultra-Nationalists or Biafra Sympathizers, they are shallow-minded, rabid extremists who are out rightly indelicate.

The Yoruba have their systems of belief, institutions, political structures and code of social conduct, or what is known as the Omoluwabi ethos. They operate the executive, legislative and judicial system with checks and balances, with Orisa as the religio-spiritual governing force, many of which are traced to the 401 pantheon of deities. Because of these identities within the Yoruba nation, and the readiness to evolve a true national identity, and because of the large-heartedness of Indigenous Lagosians, Igbo are now pecking at what even the amalgamation of 1914 could not achieve.

The Yoruba are a sophisticated lot, civilized, cultured, trusting and agreeable. But some ethnic nationalities have been described as uncouth, uncivilized, overambitious, aggressive, acquisitive, conspiratorial and saboteurs. And because of their limited formal education they are easily led astray. It is the tendency of the simple and ignorant, who bandy about lies with misleading information, creating false narratives and negative impressions which are reinforced by harmful predispositions that shaped their initial contacts with the Yorubas. They claim they are superior and continue to believe in the lie that Lagos is ‘no man’s land.’

The truth is that in Nigeria, territoriality, ancestral ties, geographic proximity and kinship ties often determine any claim to Lagos. Further, history has shown that all lands have ownership though it can be disputed, revoked, reassigned or stolen.

Let it be on record that among the reasons for the 1967 – 1970 Biafra War, now known as the Nigerian Civil War was the massive killing of Igbo in the north. Igbo were discouraged from seeing themselves as Nigerians with an identity that could be shared with Yoruba and Hausa. According to erudite scholar and world renowned historian, Professor Toyin Falola, “their loyalties to their original Igbo identities and homes were invoked against groups trying to confine them within specific regions.”

There have been international migration and cross-cultural contact which sadly had not mitigated the negative perception against the Igbo. There remains that feeling of being the outsider, or of seeing outsiders as saboteurs.

Meanwhile, Igbos has been told “#Otoge,” that is, enough is enough. What the Yorubas are saying is that Igbo should end their pomposity and rhetorical claims of messiahs of the nation. They are not. It is mere sophistry, a clever but false argument, especially with the intention of deceiving people. This is also hypocrisy and covetousness.

As many discerning Nigerians assert, the Igbo claim of moral superiority is just an exhibition of shortsightedness and greed, justified through the invocation of unsustainable myths. The truth is that the Igbo are not indigenous to Lagos, whose original inhabitants are Aworis. Granted that ancestral ties and roots do not matter when exercising rights to political franchise, Igbo claim to land ownership and capital-building investments are only sustainable as long as it is tolerated. All it takes is a stroke of the pen to start a tsunami on land ownership in Lagos and it will take decades to even get any semblance of justice in Nigeria. After all, overwhelming public interest can be pleaded to revoke any land ownership in Lagos for the favor of the natives.

Lagos is not a neutral, no man’s land. Lands are never without owners, and if you don’t believe me, go across the River Niger, anywhere from Onitsha into the deep east and jokingly make such claims! Lagos is multicultural due to migration, cosmopolitan due to Westernization, and allows freedoms; of religion, social and cultural practices, which sadly are frowned upon in other parts of Nigeria. In these other states, the natives are intolerant of such constitutionally guaranteed expressions.

A word of caution will do. When parochial altruism takes over reasoning, then there will only be violence. When the Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites around 1200 BC driving them from their homes and across the Jordan River many surviving Ephraimites attempted to return home, seeking passage from the Gileadites who guarded the river crossings. To ferret out Ephraimite refugees, the Gileadite guards employed a simple test: they asked travellers seeking passage to pronounce the Hebrew word SHIBBOLETH (The word refers to the grain-bearing part of a plant). The ancient Ephraimite dialect had no sh sound, making it hard for Ephraimites to pronounce the word. According to the Bible, 42,000 Ephraimites were killed because they couldn’t say sh. Thus, shibboleth became a word for infamy.

During the Nigerian Civil War, many Igbos were killed because they couldn’t pronounce “Toro” i.e. Three Pence. Many other Nigerians were killed because they did not profess the Islamic faith, or because they refused forcible conversion. Today, the word Shibboleth refers to any reliable marker of cultural group membership. How people dress, wash, eat, work, dance, sing, joke, court, have sex, et cetera – all the rules that govern daily life – can serve the non-arbitrary function of making strangers seem strange, thus separating ‘Us from Them.’ This partly explains the exploitation of the gullible who clamor for a Jewish identity, a claim anthropomorphically rejected by Israel and scientifically tested as baseless

Why delve into all the above? Simple. Nigeria is experiencing the problem of cooperation and the perception is that the Yoruba are at the short end of the stick. There is the herdsmen invasion of their communities with the sole ambition of grabbing ancestral lands. On the other hand, the Igbos are buying up Yoruba lands. On the political front, the politicians are promoting division, parochialism, religious intolerance and false ethnic narratives.
The truth is that Nigeria is a lotto nation, with the political elites rigging the numbers, a place of pervasive greed, incompetence, unimaginable poverty and squalor alongside uplifting resilience and hope. The governing power elite refuse to either take care of the people or educate the people, would not put food on the table nor shelter above their heads. There is political polarization, religious bigotry and intolerance against the instruments of democracy, including human rights, press freedom, security of lives and property, among others.

Lagos represents the essential Yoruba cosmopolitanism which defies clannish tendencies and the herd mentality spewing particular loyalty or tribal ideology. This partly explains why the Yoruba will go out of their way to canvass for and vote divergent political parties. At least Obasanjo remains a significant example which did not solely accommodate Yoruba interests. Indeed, Yoruba are most denied when their kinsman is in power. Obasanjo opposed Awolowo in the 1970s and Abiola in the 1990s, and when he was on the ballot in 1999, many Yoruba voted his opponent, Olu Falae. That is Yoruba sophistication.

Yoruba supported Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 and Muhammed Buhari in 2015. The claim by the Igbo that Lagos is no man’s land is part of the political calculation, and a definition of ethnicity being used to manipulate for political profit and economic opportunism. This, the Igbo are deploying as an instrument and reconstruction in an effort to appropriate Lagos.

They should let sleeping dogs lie and continue to hope that Lagos indigenes will not wake up one day to reclaim their inheritance. As Professor Falola said: “Olorun ma je ki awon ti ko gbon gbon, ki awon togbon le ma rii nkan je.” Literally, this translates to: May the foolish never become wise. Igbo should let the sleeping dog lie and let well be.