In the wake of the Igbo-Yoruba fuss, some uninformed people have decided to revise history to suit their selfish ends. These people are not careful to assert that Lagos is a no man’s land. They have argued without fact, however, confidently that, it is a territory that belongs to no one. In order words, it is a terra nullius.

There is no such thing as no man’s land or space on earth that is terra nullius. Often time, when people migrate en masse from their ancestral homes, perhaps, due to war, famine, expedition or whatever to another land, they meet the aborigines who are the landowners of the new territory they find themselves.

Historically, when Christopher Columbus and his crew landed in the New World – what we call the United States of America today, they did not find an empty territory or space only occupied by trees and animals but along with these, they found the Native Americans who were subsequently, for stratification’s sake tagged as the red Indians.

Till date in America, the natives are still there even though they have been stripped of their primordial identity. While the whites who migrated to northern hemisphere some 600 years ago have completely dominated the region, they have not for once made the claim that they conquered a vast and empty land. They still humbly acknowledge their roots as European migrants.

If the Dutch who arrived South Africa in 1652 did not call it a no man’s land, apparently, they met the blacks in their primitive settlement, why then should some tenants in Lagos state now boldly make the terra nullius claim without substance? I believe they do this to justify their right to stay in the cosmopolitan city. For the fact that the landowners out of sheer hospitality decided to accommodate some tribes who with time grew stronger and prosperous, does not mean the land no longer belongs to them.

A cursory look at look the owners of Lagos

The Awori who are now gradually shrinking in number are the real owners of Lagos. They were the first to settle in cities and suburbs of Lagos as far back as 500 years ago. After some hundreds of years, the Binis who conquered Lagos and introduced their own institutions joined them. That is why until today, the Oba of Lagos still give historical credence to the Benin Kingdom.
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