₦airaland Forum

Waiters, etc.

Coleslaw.

Ofada Sauce

A friend sent this inspiring piece to me which I thought to share with you;



An old man saw a scorpion drowning and decided to pull it out from the water. He calmly extended his hand to reach the creature. When he did, the scorpion stung him. With the effect of the pain, the old man let go of the creature and it fell back into the water.


The man, realizing that the scorpion was drowning again, got back and tried to rescue it but then again, it stung him. He let go of it again...

A young boy standing by, approached the old man and said, " excuse me sir, you are going to hurt yourself trying to save the evil-vicious creature: why do you insist? Don't you realize that each time you try to help the scorpion, it stings you?


The man replied, "the nature of the scorpion is to sting and mine is to help." He would not change in helping the scorpion. The man thought for a while and used a leaf from a nearby tree to pull d scorpion out from the water and saved it's life... Then, turning to the young boy, he continued." Do not change your nature!!


If someone hurts you, just take precautions. Some pursue happiness while others create it. Let God be your guide in whatever you do... When life presents you with a thousand reasons to cry, show it that you have a thousand reasons or more to smile. More importantly, always be the reason for that precious smile!!! Have a blessed day!

Supreme Court building @ Tinubu Square (circa 1960)

Nkrumah in Lagos (1959)

Kwame Nkrumah's motorcade driving down Nnamdi Azikiwe Street, Idumota in 1959. You can see Carter Bridge and the Cenotaph (unknown soldier) in the picture.

State House Marina (1905)

Sir Adeyemo Alakija (1884-1952)


Placido Adeyemo Assumpçao was born to Ribeiro and Maximiliana Assumpçao on 25th May 1884. He was a son of one of the “Brazilian” families of Lagos: black repatriates from Brazil, using Brazilian (Portuguese) names but usually remembering their African ancestry, which was often Yoruba. The groups were sometimes called Amaros or Aguda. The Alakija family for a while were the most prominent Amaros in Nigeria. His family was of Egba origin. He had a famous brother Olayinka and his sister Tejumade married Alake Ademola II of Abeokuta.


Placido Assumpçao’s family were Catholics like other “Brazilians”, but after going to the famous Catholic school in Lagos, St Gregory’s, he went on to the CMS Grammar School (Anglican). On leaving school he entered the government service as a clerical worker in 1900; he spent ten years in that service, mainly with the Posts. He married Christina Ayodele George in 1907.

In 1910 he began legal studies at the Middle Temple in London, where he was called to the Bar in 1913. In that year he abandoned his Portuguese name for a Yoruba one, Alakija. His brother Olayinka did the same and also qualified as a lawyer. He was heavily influenced by the tidal waves of cultural nationalism in Nigeria during the early twentieth century. It was this self-assertiveness that led his family to abandon their assimilated Portuguese name in favour of a native one.

Alakija studied at Oxford University in the early 1930s, and became an ardent proponent for the provision of tertiary education to Nigerians during the colonial period.

Adeyemo Alakija practiced successfully as a lawyer and also went into politics, but with less success. At first a close colleague of Herbert Macaulay, he broke with him over the issue of the British Government’s action against the Oba of Lagos (Eleko), a major issue in Lagos politics in the 1920s.

Mr (later Sir) Adeyemo Alakija described Eshugbayi Eleko as a pathetic figure who though he had no actual ruling function as a chief, occupied a position of fundamental influence in Lagos. This imposed responsibilities on him with which he was incapable of dealing, especially as the problems became progressively more complex with the growth of the metropolis of Lagos. He was not fit, either by temperaments or gifts, to be Oba. Worse still, he listened to evil counsellors, i.e. Herbert Macaulay, members of the Ilu Committee and the Jamat Muslims.


In 1923 and again in 1926 he stood for election to the Legislative Council (Legco) as an independent, without success. His brother was a prominent elected member of Legco later. Adeyemo also joined it, but only as an appointed member, representing Egba Division from 1933 to 1941. Some Egbas protesting to the government against the nomination of Adeyemo Alakija as legislative councillor for Egbaland, sent a copy of their petition to Falolu (Oba of Lagos), presumably to use Falolu’s influence in the furtherance of their cause.

In 1926 he made his most famous contribution to history by playing an active part in the foundation of the Daily Times, which, for many decades, was Nigeria’s leading newspaper. He planned it with Ernest Ikoli an already successful young editor and Richard Barrow, agent of Jurgen’s Colonial Products Limited and chairman of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce. A new daily newspaper was planned to take Reuters and radio reports among other news coverage. The idea was supported by Barrow’s expatriate business colleagues and approved by the government. Thus the Nigerian Printing and Publishing Company (NPPC) was formed, with a nominal share capital of £3,000, to start the Daily Times and take over Ikoli’s African Messenger. The new newspaper started on 1 June 1926 with Ikoli as editor.

Alakija was chairman of the Board of the NPPC. It succeeded in bringing out a popular newspaper using modern techniques, with the help of advertising by the European firms. Its success was in spite of a pro-government policy not unusual among Nigerian editors at that time apart from Alakija’s friend, Sir Kitoye Ajasa. In 1936 the NPPC was merged with West Africa Newspapers Limited of London and Liverpool, publishers of West Africa and the West African Review. Later, in 1948, the International Publishing Corporation of London took over the Daily Times enterprise.


Alakija won the traditional titles of Bariyun of AKE (Abeokuta) in 1932 and Woje Ileri of Ife in 1935. The British government also honoured one of its most steadfast Nigerian friends. He won the Jubilee Medal, the Coronation Medal and in 1939 the CBE. He attended King George VI’s coronation in 1937. In 1942, having ceased the previous year to be an appointed Legco member, he was appointed to the Executive Council. In 1945 he was Knighted, with the KBE. He went to Britain in 1949 to receive the knighthood from George VI. Oba Adele who, succeeded Falolu in 1949, made Sir Adeyemo Alakija, one of his most powerful supporters in the struggle for the succession, the Baba Eko (father of Lagos).

He was a prominent Freemason, first Nigerian to become Grand Master of the Nigerian Freemasons, who were influential among the Lagos elite. He embraced some traditional elements of Yoruba socio-political and religious history when he co-founded the reformed Ogboni society and became the Olori Oluwo, or Lord of the Lords, of the brotherhood. As a member of the Ogboni confraternity, he introduced the use of masonic symbols inside the organization, such as the unblinking eye on an inverted V and three vertical shapes.



He was the keenest enthusiast for horse racing all his life, owning horses and becoming well known for regular attendance, in his white panama hat, at Lagos race meetings. He had sent all his family to Britain by the 1930s, so that his children could receive education there. In 1938, his first wife having died, he married a second with exactly the same name, Ayodele George, but unrelated to the other. They moved, in 1951, to a new house, said to be the finest private house in Lagos, Ake House at Obalende.


Sir Adeyemo was not prominent in party politics but he contributed greatly to their start by organising, in 1945, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, of which he became the first president; this Yoruba Organisation (“League of the Sons of Oduduwa”) became the nucleus of the Action Group. He was also president of the Nigerian Youth Movement.

Sir Adeyemo Alakija died on 10 May 1952. His widow, Lady Alakija, was for years afterwards an active director of the Daily Times of Nigeria Limited and a living link with its early days under her husband

This is a good opportunity to ask the question, does anybody have any info about the land cases of 2005?

I remember that there was the Ijora/Ojora land case & I heard the Ojora Family won, but I can't remember the details. This is the best I can find online http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/law/38782-lagos-landlords-seek-interpretation-of-supreme-court-judgment.html

I also heard that Nigerian Breweries now pay rent to the Ojora family.

I remember that the Onikoyi Family also took government to court, but I never heard the final judgement. Basically, the Obasanjo Administration was selling of Federal Government property in Ikoyi because the Feds do not need them. Lagos State Government claimed that it should have inherited those properties. The Onikoyi Family went to court, stating that it was the family that gave government the land when the colonial government wanted to use it and since the Feds do not need it anymore, ownership of the land must revert to the family.

I also heard that the Lagos State government returned land to the Oniru Family.

Anyone with more info should please supply it.

shymmex: It's annoying when people have a discourse about the history of Lagos, and exclude the Ijebu merchants, and the Egbas - and focus on the Aworis in Eko only... The Ijebus and the Egbas made Lagos of old what it was.. We brought life to Eko; we were the ones who made Lagos Island; we own the biggest festival in Lagos(Eyo); returnee slaves(mostly of Egba and Ijebu stock) brought fanti carnival to Lagos; and the Lagos elites (millionaires and billionaires) of the past were of the Egba and Ijebu stock. The Shitta Beys, Da Rochas, Bode Thomas etc. are not Aworis... Even right now, the most important parts of Lagos are not Awori land...

Talking about Lagos, and not including us - is like a slap to our face... We made Lagos what it was, and what it is today.. We're tired of people calling Lagos, Awori Land - Lagos belongs to the Ijebus, Egbas, Aworis, Eguns, and partially Tapas (Tapas are neglible though)... If the Aworis want to claim Lagos to themselves, good luck to them - they should let us join our kins, to create Ijebu state. And the Egbas can join the present day Ogun state....

That's just my two cents..

I'm about to write about a great Egba man on the other Lagos thread.

[quote author=Negro_Ntns]continuing with discussion of who the Idejo Chiefs are. . . .

Yoruba can be defined here as a commonwealth of cultures and peoples under the dominion and sovereignty of Oyo Empire, the last standing Yoruba Political Sovereignty when the British forces landed in Eko.

In Eko, the elite ruling class is an aggregate of influences from Oyo Empire, Bini Empire and Nupe Kingdom. Out of the Oyo Empire we have the Aworis and the Eguns; out of the Bini Empire we have the Binis; out of the Nupe Kingdom we have the Tapas.

The Aworis, the original land owners of Eko (Awunrin) were people of Olofin, settlers from Ile-Ife. The children of Olofin and the original rulers in Eko needed military protection against incursion from Dahomey and made invitations to Oyo. Oyo military operates cavalry formations but the dense forest of the Awori riverine land were highly risky and unsuited for their horses and so protected them from the northern flank. Dahomey soon found new channells to invade by attacking through coastal waters at Whydah (Ouida or Allada). Dahomey then controlled the Eko coast and its outlets into the Sea and Portuguese trade. Invitations were then sent to Bini for protection against Dahomey and Oba of Bini dispatched warriors to Eko. These warriors of Bini Kingdom consisted of Edos, Itsekiris and Ilajes. This protection resulted in a treaty between the Idejo Chiefs (Aworis) and the Bini Oba to stay a permanent base in Eko. Asipa (Asikpa) thus became the first Bini to represent the Oba in Eko. The Idejo Chiefs gave land in what is now Iga Idunganran from where the Binis could enforce their administration and protection of the lagoon and coastal waters. This was how Bini monarcy started in Eko. Chiefs were dispatched from Bini to Eko to advise and assist Asipa in the administration of his duties and the exercise of the treaty. These Bini chiefs are the Akarigbere group.

The Idejo chiefs' insignia of office is the IruKere (Horsetail) which is the symbol of throne for the Alaafin of Oyo. This denotes their ancestry. The Akarigbere chiefs' insignia of office is the Abere (Sword) or Scepter) which is the symbol of throne for the Oba of Bini. The sword denotes ancestry from Bini and can be seen in this picture of Oba of Lagos.[/quote]+ 100

Marina in 1899

Turnbull Road Ikoyi (1959). This is close to Ikoyi Park. My mum used to tell me about Ikoyi Park. You could go swimming, there animals and plants, etc.

Now it's Park View Estate

Supreme Court buildings, Lagos in 1959. Wole Soyinka hated these buildings. He preferred the old wooden Supreme Court buildings at Tinubu Square (see You Must Set Forth at Dawn). The old Supreme Court buildings were demolished to make way for the Independence Fountain at Tinubu Square. The Independence Fountain was demolished by the Tinubu Administration to make way for the current fountain.


You can see the old Race Course opposite the Supreme Court buildings. This was before Tafawa Balewa Square (which some describe as a concrete jungle. Lol) was built.

Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (Prime Minister of Nigeria), Princess Alexandria (representative of Queen Elizabeth II) & Sir James Robertson (Governor General of Nigeria) @ State House Marina. Behind them are Tafawa Balewa’s ministers (including Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, Otunba T.O.S Benson & Raymond Njoku).

This building should be open to tourists. I'd certainly pay to tour the building.

I wish books had search engines. I’ve been searching for the section of this book that explains the deal between the Oba of Lagos and the NCNC/NPC, but I can’t find it. I’ve found portions of the book that refer to it, but I can’t find the exact portion I’m looking for. Therefore, I shall briefly narrate the story as I remember it, then quote the sections that refer to the deal.

The city of Lagos grew from Lagos Island. It initially included a few places on the mainland, such as Apapa, Iddo Island and Ijora. Ikeja, Ilupeju, Mushin, Isolo, Ikorodu, Badagry, etc were all part of Western Region. The NCNC and NPC were looking for a way to gain a foothold in Lagos, which was considered Action Group territory. They decided to use expansion of the Colony/Capital Territory as a means to get a foothold. The United Muslim Party (UMP) also used the issue of territory expansion in its campaigns.

“The UMP had its counterpart in the Western Region, the National Emancipation League. The NEL had, in fact, been formed by some of the leaders of the UMP. In 1957 that party drew up a memorandum for the Constitutional Conference, and the Lagosian leaders had wanted to include in this a demand for an extension of Lagos boundaries to include land in the Western Region. A group of men whose chief attachments were outside Lagos resisted this and finally left the UMP and founded the National Muslim League in the West. After a speech by Chief Awolowo hinting at dire consequences for those who introduced religious politics into his Region, the name was changed to National Emancipation League. The party took part in the Western Region’s local government elections in 1958, contesting one hundred and five wards in Ikeja, Ijebu, Okitipupa and Oshun Divisions and winning thirty one of them, eleven unopposed.”




“July was marked by few events which were of moment for the campaign. On the 7th the Federal Government ensured the loyalty of Oba Adele of Lagos to the NCNC and NPC by rejecting a proposal to cut his salary, made in February by the Action Group majority in the Town Council. On the 11th, Chief Rotimi Williams held his press conference to refute the NCNC charges against the Western Customary Courts. In the East the Government published the Election of Second Class Chiefs Regulations, in 1959, which laid down the principle of elections as the means of selecting the new “second-class chiefs". They were to select fifty-five of their number on a divisional basis to go to the new Regional House of Chiefs. On July 28th it was announced that new elections to the Lagos Town Council would be held on October 29th, with forty-two single Member wards instead of the fourteen old multi-Member wards.

In the middle of August the campaign began to gather momentum again, with the return of Dr Azikiwe. He arrived in Lagos by sea on August 19th, the day after the last meeting of the old House of Representatives, which as its last important measure, passed a bill recognising Oba Adele II as "Oba of Lagos" and not merely "Head of the House of Ado" as he had been called before. In anticipation of Dr Azikiwe's arrival Chief Awolowo again attempted to take the initiative. The Principal Organising Secretary of the Action Group was sent to meet the the NCNC leader's ship at Takoradi (in Ghana), to deliver a letter from Chief Awolowo answering Dr Azikiwe's Presidential Address of June 5th and his comments upon the Action Group's manifesto on June 16th. The Action Group President rebuked his opponent for the use of invective "which would make the crudest sailor blush" and then went on to criticise in detail the statistics on development in the Eastern Region used by Dr Azikiwe, quoting his own figures for the East and the West, naturally to the latter's advantage. He also rebuked the NCNC President for his lack of concrete proposals, pointing out that the only definite statements on the policy to be followed if a NCNC Government was returned to power were firstly to create a Mid-West State, secondly to extend the Federal Territory of Lagos by a radius of thirty miles, thirdly to restore the deposed Alafin of Oyo and lastly to better the conditions of those in the Army, Navy, Police, Civil Service, Public Corporations, and the workers of the country generally".



The NCNC won Lagos North and South and Lagos Central was won by the Action Group. This result was not unexpected, since the Yorubas of the older parts of the city had always supported Action Group, while the newer areas, inhabited by immigrant Yorubas and others, had favoured NCNC. What did cause surprise was the narrow margin - 1,546 votes in a total poll of 38,837 - by which the renominated Action Group candidate was victorious in the Central constituency. The intensive campaign which the Oba of Lagos had conducted on behalf of his new NCNC and NPC friends had almost borne fruit.


"The Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959: Politics and Administration in a Developing Political System" by K.W.J Post, published for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research by Oxford University Press. 1963.

Pictures below: The Governor-General, Sir James Robertson, checks an elector's registration card during his tour of polling stations. Federal elections of Saturday, December 12th, 1959. (Picture from "The Nigerian Federal Elections of 1959: Politics and Administration in a Developing Political System" by KWJ Post)


The Race-Course, Lagos "scoreboard" showing results of the Federal elections of Saturday, December 12th, 1959.

And I respect their right to their opinion.

Venchy: I have enjoyed this thread so much and it's very educating with lots of beautiful pictures & History, but I will like to appeal to some people that comes on this Thread to criticise other people's opinion and all sorts of tribal Nonsense that it's not the best way to move forward in life by nagging one another, right now what we need to do is to tackle the CRIMINALS running the country rather than blaming the Colonial Era.

I earlier quoted someone who said "Nigerians can start an argument in an empty room".

I don't get what is so difficult in understanding that there were some good things that existed during the colonial era that don't exist now (post boxes, tramway, relative security, stable electricity, etc), while there are some good things that exist today (better disposal of night soil, broader spread of development, technological advancement) that didn't exist then. Some extremists want to make it seem like everything was bad then or everything is bad now & that's just crazy!

Again, it depends on opinion. Some people believe that the MacGregor Canal is presently an eyesore (wish I could get the then picture and compare with the now pic. I have both, but it'll take a long search to get the then pic), while others can appreciate the Ring Road that was built over it. Some people believe that Marina is currently a concrete jungle and they miss the beach that was once there, while others appreciate the expressway that is currently there.

Wole Soyinka hates the fountain @ Tinubu Square and misses the Supreme Court Building that was previously there, while I love the fountain. People have a right to their opinions.

I would NEVER want the British to come back (that sounds crazy to me), but I respect the rights of those who would want them to come back.

Also, like I said earlier, Lagos was built by a variety of people using a variety of sources of funds. Those who insist that it was solely oil money that developed Lagos and those who want to deny that oil a part to play need to re-examine their position. However, I have relatives who believe that the developments brought about by oil money actually ruined the city.

Rossikk: You thought it was London because you're a brainwashed slave to Oyibos, and will gladly drop your local wine and rush to lick their spittle, NOT because it remotely looked like London.

Nigeria's busiest and most commercial street is Broad Street Lagos.



Broad Street, Lagos 1951 under British rule (''looking like London'')

https://lagosalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Lagosalive-Broad-street-19511.jpg





Broad Street, Lagos, today under Nigerian rule

https://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff41/you_me_14/lagos5.jpg

https://www.motherlandnigeria.com/pictures/lagos_broad_street.jpg


[size=100pt]NUFF SAID[/size]

Your 2nd pic is actually Marina Street.

kindabigg: I just thought I should bring back memories of the early 90s. Every time I remember Nigeria, I remember the 90s, and what makes it thick. 'Behind the Cloud' put Jos on the map, and that was a city I always wanted to visit - before religion destroyed the city...

Nosa was my favourite character in 'behind the cloud', memories...

Jos was on the map before Behind the Clouds. Remember Cockcrow @ Dawn? The stars of the Jos television galaxy include Sadiq Daba, Mat & Gladys Dadzie, George Mentie, etc.

My favourite character in Behind the Clouds was Papa Efe (Zack Amata). I was sad when MacArthur Fom (Nosa) died.


But this should be in the TV/Movies section. It has nothing to do with politics.

How on earth can we explain this, a professor of my own calibre and age who has served the country for so
many years in different capacities being subjected to indignity and utmost brutality by some majors and privates
who are nitwits ordinarily. I’m not being boastful. It’s like you take a jewel and you start messing it up in the
mud. You cannot explain it. Any time I recalled the humiliation meted out to me by those nitwits I started
weeping, not for myself, but for Nigeria, country, which was being savagely reduced to nothingness.
Professor Femi Odekunle [Tell, August 31, 1998:20]

Yar’ Adua was hale and hearty inside Abakaliki Prison. Then some people came saying they were from Abacha
and they wanted to take Yar’Adua for medical check-up. They picked him up hale and hearty but he arrived
the University Teaching Hospital, Enugu dead. What happened between Abakaliki and Enugu nobody seems
to know. But something happened and if pressure is put on those people who picked him up they would give
an answer to the country.
Comrade Shehu Sani, a Northern Nigerian human rights activists arrested
for the 1995 phantom coup on the account of his human rights activism
[TheNews 7 Sept. 1998:15, 18].

Zakari Biu is an animal. He’s just wicked..he is dead to feelings. I fact, I don’t know why such people should
still be walking the streets of Lagos or this country. I am surpised as I am told that he has even been promoted,
even given special assignments. I am surprised at this government. Zakari Biu, for what, they know him to have
done, that they could still keep him. This government itself is culpable of all acts they committed...Omenka
started the whole thing. He co-supervised our torture. But the main actor in my case was really Zakari Biu. I
say both of them have the same instincts, if we compare them.
Col. Ronald Emokpae [Tell, April 12, 1999:24].

I have called for the arrest and trial immediately at the Abuja High Court the following government officials
for the atrocities committed against Nigeria and Nigerians in the course of the late Gen. Abacha’s
administration: Alhaji Ismaila Gwazo; Brigadier-Gen. Sabo [rtd].., Col. Frank Omenka..There are also Lt. Col.
M. Garuba..and Lt. Ibrahim who was one of the people beating Generals in Jos...For the purpose of true national
reconciliation and genuine peace, these people should be retired and be put on trial.
Chief Yomi Tokoya, a suspected coupist released on July 15, 1998 [The News 7
Sept 1998:19]

..the experience I had when the government decided to send Operation Sweep, a para-military outfit to break
up the farewell reception the human rights groups and pro-democracy activists organised for me, personally was
a vivid demonstration of the dehumanisation Nigerians were going through everyday under the General Abacha
administration. It was very surprising and careless about international protocol, hence they could break a
reception held for an ambassador.
Ambassador Walter Carrington, former US Ambassador to Nigeria [Tell, March 29
1999:25]

Testimony of Colonel Roland Emokpae


I went through hell. If there was hell on earth, I saw it...apart from the initial mental torture, the agony I had to go through was enormous, because I was the only officer that was subjected to various cells transfer. I was taken to the worst cell and when I asked question, I was told Abacha directed that I should be kept in the worst cell. In fact, that cell...it’s dark, there is not light, it’s infested, it’s so narrow that in fact you have to stand both day and night...That was the first stage of the torture. And for two, three nights I spent there, it was harrowing. After complaining, they had to push me out to another cell. I think I went through about four or five cells in that place.

We were there for three months, and nobody came to talk to you so that you can even ask what was going on...They sent for me; with the usual chaining, arms shackles, whatever and took me to the interrogation centre somewhere in Ikoyi, off Bourdillion. We got in there and I met one of the panels. Omenka was there. One other officer, whose name I have forgotten, and Zakari Biu. And they asked me if I knew why I was there, I said no. They said they were surprised. They said okay, what was my movement like in the last two or three years?… They said, “Look, don’t you know why you are here? Don’t you know the plan you have to topple the government? I said, “This is news to me. I don’t know of that. I have never planned to overthrow any government right from the day I was commissioned”... they were very hostile and they said okay, since I was not willing to cooperate, I should go and put down my statement.

So...at about 6 to 6.15 p.m. a private soldier came and said he had instruction that we should come out. We got out. He said we should UnCloth. We took off our shirts and trousers. He said no, no, we should be naked completely. So, we took off everything. We were naked and we were chained, back to back, and that was how we walked into the open. We stayed there right from about that time till 7 a.m. We spent the night standing...Another funny thing was while they kept us there, Bello-Fadile was chained alone and kept close to us. Maybe they wanted to hear if there had been anything; maybe we could talk, they’ll pick it up. They sent out some men to monitor what was going on. And we kept asking Bello-Fadile, “What is going on? Please if you know, let us know and save us from this humiliation”. He said he did not know, so that was our first ordeal.

The following morning, when people started coming to work, they pushed us in, we wore our dresses; and we were still chained hand to hand, leg to leg and kept in the open field in the scorching sun. My colleague asked for water, he was refused water. At about 4 p.m. the second day, we were now thrown into one dungeon behind, so that nobody would see us… After some time, I heard nothing. And a week or two later, that was when they came picked me up, took me back to the same place, this time, me alone, to ask the same question. I said, “Please, I really don’t know what you people want”. They said well, it would appear I was not ready to cooperate. They claimed that in my movement, they observed that at a point in time, I spoke to Bello-Fadile in his office. I said, “Yes, but I told you, when I came, I had this tooth and eye problem. I went to Bonny Camp which was where Bello-Fadile was ad director of legal services, and we had just finished from Enugu, and he is my course-mate and friend, I felt like saying hi to him. And that was exactly what I did. In fact I spent less than two minutes with Bello-Fadile”. But they said no, no, we spent about two, three hours talking…They took me behind a cell and of course had to hang me. They call it the spider hanging - your hands up, the two legs all suspended, I was there throughout the night. They pulled my shirt off so, I was in my pant only. Look. Name all the kinds of insects, they preyed on me. I told them you are punishing an innocent man. The following day, they took me back to my cell...


About three weeks later, the same Zakari Biu came...With shackles on, I was blindfolded. The next thing, they pushed me into a waiting vehicle and sped off, driving roughly…I didn’t know where they were heading to. But somehow, having had a little knowledge of Lagos, through the cries in the various bus-stops, I was able to kind of guess where they were taking me to. They took me to that particular area and I heard shouts and cries, like some other people were being tortured. “Colonel”, they kept asking me, “tell us what you have done. Tell us how much Bello-Fadile gave to you. How much was promised you by some generals. And I said, “Look I’m sorry. Nobody ever gave me money”...They said okay, I am not ready to talk. This time, I was in chains. I had been blindfolded, I didn’t know what was going on. Then later, that other man that was being tortured was now… I heard a kind of silence, I believed he has passed out and they dropped him. They said I should come out.

In fact, they themselves just brought me out like a bundle of firewood and the next thing, they just threw me on the ground, folded my legs, folded my hands behind and they tied me like they tie logs and they carried me like that. All I knew was a pole was inserted under my armpit and like a barbecued chicken; I was there suspended for hours. In fact, by the time I passed out, everything about me, the limbs, all were gone. While there, they would strike a match and put under my nose, my eyes, to say something, to confess… so after almost about two hours of torture, I was finished, and by the time I regained consciousness, I could not shout, I couldn’t even move. They knew I was passing out. They just removed me, and dumped me like you dump… if you’ve been to abattoir, you must have seen how they throw a slaughtered cow...For 10 good days, I was lying prostrate on the bed. I couldn’t move my knees. Even eating, they had to spoonfeed me

At the end of Emokpae’s “trial” he was sentenced to death by firing squad. “As soon as he [Patrick Aziza] said it, I said, “I’m rejecting it in the name of the Lord”. Openly, he shouted at me, “Shut up and sit down”...Before we knew it, vehicles, tanks and all these things had been brought in, we were shackled again and we were taken back to the black Maria. It was on July 14, 1995 that the judgement was passed”.

Does anybody have an account of the incident that occurred when Herbert Macaulay went to the cemetery at night to hide the Eleko's staff? I can't find it again

Herbert Samuel Heelas Macaulay & Henry Rawlinson Carr

Henry Carr stated that “Lagos was led by a little clique of ambitious and vainglorious men led by an evil genius who owned a sensationalist newspaper (the Lagos Daily News)”. “Among all the human monsters with whom we have been brought into contact, none has displayed the devilish ingenuity of this man”. Macaulay was a “desperate enemy of society; my hatred will only finish with my life”. Macaulay was, in Carr’s opinion, a disquieting factor in the public peace and should be banished “as a crooked mind and a dangerous fool”.

According to Herbert Macaulay’s malicious account, in a pamphlet published in 1924 entitled “Henry Carr must go”, Carr’s father was Amuwo Carr, a liberated Saro emigrant, popularly known as Daddy Shope, who deserted his wife Rebecca Carr, “a devout Christian woman” to settle in Abeokuta as a happy polygamist. The young Carr helped his mother after school hours by selling fufu and beads. Carr replied that the pamphlet was “nothing but the ravings of a lunatic…(of) a mind coarse, of gross perception, and with a disastrous lack of delicacy”.

To Macaulay, Carr was “a disappointed and disgruntled parvenu”, whose one passion was to clamour for promotion.

A fierce hatred existed between Henry Carr and Herbert Macaulay and the political troubles of Lagos were largely due to the antipathy between them. Carr believed that the best way to secure a better life for Lagosians was by working with and through the colonial government. He had risen through the colonial service to occupy the highest position held by an African; the post of Resident (commissioner) for the Colony. He was a successfully assimilated African (the ideal common to many of the modern elite of his day), who believed that it was right for the African to be as European as possible. Carr declared himself and people like him “not Europeanised natives, but men transformed (transfigured) into Europeans”. Therefore, he argued, blacks who, like himself, came from a certain class ought to be allowed to go on leave to England, just as their white counterparts did, “for health reasons”.

Macaulay disagreed. He found expression in his idea of nationhood, in his recognition of the customs of the people, their institutions and their land. The government’s assault on native rights and Macaulay’s defence of them were the main causes of neo-traditional nationalism, without which, political nationalism would have been considerably delayed.

Herbert Samuel Heelas Macaulay

Herbert Macaulay was born on 14 November 1864, into an already famous family; his grandfather was Bishop Crowther, first black bishop of the Anglican Church and his father was Reverend T.B Macaulay, first principal of CMS Grammar School, Lagos. His father was a strict disciplinarian and Macaulay grew up in a rigid Victorian household. “Seven”, once wrote Macaulay, “is a holy number…I was the seventh child of my parents…I was a holy child, innocent and lovable…my mother generally dressed me in a suit of purple silk velvet knickerbockers…(and) coat to match…but excessive kneeling at prayers soon left a circular worn patch in the velvet breeches”. “I was presented every day to Governor Glover who used to visit my father every evening”. Macaulay attended the Lagos Grammar School and became the first Nigerian to be sponsored by the colonial government for a professional course abroad when he won a scholarship to study land surveying and civil engineering at Plymouth, England in 1890 (some say the scholarship was awarded as an appreciative gesture for the work of his grandfather, Bishop Ajayi Crowther). He also studied piano tuning in London.

Returning to Nigeria in 1893, Macaulay joined the colonial civil service as government surveyor in charge of crown grants, a function that not only introduced him to the land situation in Lagos, but also gave him an insight into the irregularities of the colonial administration. Macaulay served the government diligently until he became disenchanted with its racist policies. Macaulay’s first personal experience of colonial injustice was when, as a surveyor, he was given a salary of £120 per annum, despite Governor Carter’s recommendation that his minimum pay should be £250 (the amount being paid to his British colleagues). This and a succession of other events led to Macaulay’s resignation from the service.

Macaulay then engaged in politics in order to fight for the rights of Nigerians. In 1912 he led a delegation to protest against the government’s decision to place lands in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria “under the control of the Governor who shall hold and administer them for the use and common benefit of the natives” and to do likewise in the Southern Provinces. He was subsequently jailed for this. He was also a key character in the celebrated Oluwa land case. Macaulay also founded the Lagos Daily News as a means of enlightening the people. In 1922 he founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), Nigeria’s first political party. When Nnamdi Azikiwe formed the NCNC in 1944, Macaulay was made its first national president. It was in the course of leading the party in a nationwide campaign tour in 1946 that he was taken ill and died in Kano on May 7, 1946.

Macaulay and Carr share the distinction of being the greatest bibliophiles in Nigerian history. No one can possibly write about Lagos history and politics without consulting the thousands of files collected by Macaulay on just about every subject in Lagos history. He was known as the “Wizard of Kirsten Hall”, because of his ability to obtain classified information, which he used to devastating effect. His network of informers would be the envy of a modern intelligence service. He paid handsomely for this information, but his real asset was that those who gave him information genuinely believed that he would use it in the national interest.

Herbert Macaulay was an extremely superstitious man. His files were filled with documents of fortune tellers and diviners, with full instructions on taboos and other occult practices. To give an example, one Mustapha, an Indian diviner, warned Macaulay about women: he should not receive any food from any woman; allow a woman into his bedroom or have an affair with any woman before she had a “bath in your presence in your home”.

Macaulay was also a great socialite: he electrified the social life in Lagos before what Echeruo called the “death’ of the peculiarly Victorian Lagos society at the end of the nineteenth century. He was a regular feature at the numerous “at homes”, “conversaziones” concerts, shows, etc., that were part of Lagos society. It was in this milieu that he came to acknowledge the gift that was to stand him in good stead during his quarrel with the government over the Eleko – his remarkable genius for organising things and people.



Henry Carr

Henry Carr was born on August 15 1863 in Lagos. He was the son of Sierra-Leonean emigrants of Egba origins, Amuwo Carr and Rebecca Carr. He had his elementary education at the St Paul’s (Breadfruit) School between 1869 and 1870, but finished schooling at the Olowogbowo Wesleyan Elementary School, also in Lagos, which he attended from 1871 to 1873. In 1874, he enrolled at the newly opened Wesleyan Boys High School in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He entered Fourah Bay College in 1877 and obtained, with honours, the Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and physics in 1882, at the age of 19. He was the first student of the college to obtain an honours degree. He left for Britain an enrolled at Lincoln’s Inn, St Mark’s College in Chelsea and the Royal College of Science in South Kensington, also in London.

On his return to Nigeria in June 1885, after an absence of 12 years, Carr was appointed senior assistant master at the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Grammar School, in Lagos. In 1889, he was invited by the colonial governor to join the civil service as Chief Clerk and Sub-Inspector of Schools for Lagos, becoming, the following year, the Assistant Colonial Secretary for Native Affairs. He later returned to the Department of Education as Provincial Inspector, then Chief Inspector of Schools in Southern Nigeria and Commissioner (Resident) of the Colony of Lagos, from which post he retired on August 1 1924, at the age of 61. He was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1928 and served as an adviser to the government until 1941.

In 1906, Henry Carr received the Master of Arts and Bachelor of Civil Law Degrees from Durham University. In the King’s Birthday Honours of 1920 he was made a Companion of the Imperial Service Order. Later, he received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire and also the honorary degrees of Master of Science and Doctor of Civil Law.

Henry Carr died on March 6 1945.

Carr’s erudition was phenomenal. When he died in 1945 he left a library of 18,000 books each, of which, Rossiter believes, showed marks of a personal selection. Carr left his library, which formed the foundation of the library of the University of Ibadan, to the Nigerian Government.

Carr’s rivalry with Herbert Macaulay was fierce. As far as Carr was concerned, Macaulay was an egotist who could never conceive of himself as making a mistake or look upon an opponent as anything but a villain. The politics of Lagos, which Macaulay dominated after 1919, were, according to Carr, simply a contest in competitive mass bribery, an appeal to the cupidity of the people. Lagos affected by “rampant racialism and nationalist feeling”, began to show a strain of primitivism. Nationalism was a disease that Carr wished Lagos could avoid.

According to Macaulay, Carr’s appointment as provincial commissioner was highly irregular. The post was created mainly to remove Carr from the education department, where he ought to have become director of education; Carr was given none of the functions which Lugard in his 1918 political memoranda specified as part of the office of resident. Lagos was not a province; therefore, the resident could not be the senior government official in the area and not being a province, the resident could not exercise, as Lugard’s memoranda expected residents to do, a close supervision over Lagos.

Carr invented numerous excuses for avoiding uneducated Africans, for whom he had an aversion. But he was a tremendous fighter for his own welfare and prestige within the colonial service.

Carr was essentially an elitist: he had no patience with the masses, whom he considered to be “sheep-like-ready to follow where they are led”. He was not much impressed by the argument that majority of the people might want what he considered unprofitable. He characterised the illiterate masses as swayed more by emotion than reason, with emotions more suited to market women than men. Lagos politics he thought “a kind of systematic insanity”; the people of Lagos had refused to think for themselves: they had placed their trust in a leader who retained his hold over them “by stirring up mob emotions, by using tricks, mass propaganda, hate drill and all kinds of mumbo-jumbo”. Their profession of patriotism was a smoke screen to hide spite, greed, dishonesty and vanity.

Carr was therefore a good example of Malcolm X’s veritable “house Negro”. Unloved by all sections of Lagos community, he found solace, again like the “house Negro”, in Christianity.
Herbert Macaulay could not have been more different from Carr in character, looks and personality. Macaulay was flamboyant and resplendent, while Carr was quietly conservative. Macaulay was ebullient, effervescent and charming. Carr was foreboding, dour, shy, stolid and withdrawn. Macaulay had the most improbable handlebar moustache, which made him look like a cunning playboy and he was something of a daredevil. The indigenes of Lagos could understand and love Macaulay as they never could Carr.

saxywale: because he ran berserk on the ilaje thread.

Ok, that explains it. Some people complained that he spammed the thread with pictures.

On June 10, 1925, nineteen princes (known to be pro-government) signed a letter demanding that the Eleko should quit the palace within fourteen days. Their letter, which was purportedly written at 15, Pedro Street, Oko-Awo, Lagos, Nigeria and addressed to Oba Eshugbayi Eleko in his Iga Idungaran residence, was signed by eleven literate princes, while the remaining eight affixed their thumbprints.

1) Yesufu Oba (Thumb impression)

2) Sule Akintoye (Thumb impression)

3) Faro Odunsi Asinlokun (Thumb impression)

4) Yesufu Giwa Akinsemoyin (Thumb impression)

5) Ibikunle Akintoye (signed)

6) M.A Akinsemoyin (Thumb impression)

7) K.A Oyekan (Signed)

8 ) Brimah Aro Akinsemoyin (Thumb impression)

9) S.M Olusi (Signed)

10) G.E.O.I Oyekan (Signed)

11) Oluye Dosunmu (Thumb impression)

12) Disu Olusi (Thumb impression)

13) Jinadu Sokun (Thumb impression)

14) Daniel S. Asinlokun (Signed)

15) Kasumu Sokun (Signed)

16) Buraimo Odunsi Asinlokun (Signed)

17) Bello A. Odunsi Asinlokun (Signed)

18 ) Abudu Lasisi Akinsemoyin (Signed)

19) Tijani Odunsi Akinsemoyin (Signed)


The letter was written on behalf of other princes by M.A Akinsemoyin, 10 Akinsemoyin Street, Lagos, who was also witness to the signatures. Another letter was sent to Eleko on June 26, notifying him that Ibikunle Akitoye had been chosen to replace him.

Broad Street in 1951

Isale-Eko in the 1950s

Jankara Medicine Market 1953