₦airaland Forum

“There is a sharp distinction between Indigenes of Lagos and Citizens of Lagos” – Former Lagos Attorney-General Declares at Roundtable on Land & Power in Lagos

August 15, 2024
UNILAG Communication Unit

A former Attorney-General of Lagos State, Mr. Olasupo Shasore, SAN, has affirmed the distinctions that exist between indigenous peoples of Lagos and residents of Lagos.

He made the submission at the Roundtable on Land and Power in Lagos, an event organized by the Institute of African and Diaspora Studies, University of Lagos on Tuesday, August 13, 2024 at the Arthur Mbanefo Digital Resource Centre.

The respected Silk delivered the Keynote Address at the blended event and used the opportunity to raise fundamental questions about the rehashed history of the origins of Lagos, which he considered as “negligent and abdicating of the geomorphic and morphological process of its human settlement”.

His words: “Human settlements and habitation are driven by geography and natural resources. In human history, coastal regions have long been choice positions for human migration and settlement. There is a natural human inclination towards water. Several generations have failed to apply the knowledge of the history of Lagos’ geography to its indigeneity and that abdication is what has led to the Lagos Settlers’ Myth.”


He proposed research collaboration between his team and the IADS-UNILAG to embark on archaeological excavations of the Ido and Idumagbo areas of Lagos, submitting that “the Identity of Lagos is far deeper than the First Settler mythology suggests”.

Nigeria’s only cosmopolitan State

According to Mr. Shasore, SAN, “Lagos is the only cosmopolitan State of the 36 States in Nigeria, a host to different ethnicities from across the nation; and it means that Lagos has already accepted its role as a global city.”

He traced the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos back to the years before the turn of the century when the arrival of the Saros (liberated slave-returnees and children from Sierra Leone) and the Agudas (descendants of freed Afro-Brazilian slaves) in Lagos mixed with the indigenous Lagosians and Europeans to give the city its character as a melting pot of cultures and orientations.

“Lagos has remained ever-cosmopolitan and accepting of people who flow into her to advance the cause of their lives; and for long may it remain so”, he said.


The “No-Man’s-Land” Question

The Keynote Speaker minced no words in affirming the indigenous character of Lagos. Though admitting the challenges posed to that reality with examples of notable events like the 1861 Treaty of Cession, the 1901 Privy Council Ruling, and the 1978 Land Use Decree, he declared that “a community of people that is indigenous to a particular area has its own right to express that.”

“Indigeneity is not a rude thing to say. The United Nations Convention on Indigenous Peoples affirms the right of indigenous peoples to express their indigeneity. There is a sharp distinction between Indigenes of Lagos and Citizens of Lagos; and that distinction is irreversible.”

A well-published investigative historian and documentary producer, Mr. Shasore averred that the Citizenship of Lagos is conferred on Nigerian residents of Lagos who work and pay their taxes to the State, and it is a constitutional right.

“We must begin to align the operations of our Constitution to our indigenous realities. Citizenship and Indigeneity can co-exist with their respective rights being acknowledged and accorded. Voting for Governor is not an indigenous right; it is a constitutional right”, he declared.

[b]While he re-affirmed the age-long accommodation and hospitality of Lagos, Mr. Shasore admonished that those admirable qualities must not be taken for granted with hair-raising statements like “Lagos is a No Man’s Land”.

Panels, Postulations, and Prognoses

Three different panels followed Mr. Shasore’s well-received Keynote presentation. Panel 1 focused on Land Contestation and Spatial Displacement, Panel 2 on “Who is Lagos? What is Lagos?” and Panel 3 on “Is Lagos Really a No Man’s Land?”

Appearing on Panel 1 alongside three other eminent personalities, Dr. Esther Thontteh, a Land Administration and Mgt. Specialist, identified the Land Use Decree as the single most significant act which nationalized cultural lands and set the stage for contestations between statutory and customary rights.

On Panel 2, an Elder Statesman, Dr. Patrick Dele Cole, defined a Lagosian as “anyone who has a claim to being a Lagosian”. He averred that “Lagos is big enough to accommodate all its competing claims, but progress should not contaminate us. We should find a way to be ourselves while we are progressing”.

On Panel 3, Prof. Patrick Oloko spoke of a “Spirit of Lagos” which attracts, refines, and infuses its inhabitants, indigene or resident, with the “capacity to grow and “blow”’. According to him, “Lagos defines itself as being somebody’s land, but its culture and energy derives from the overwhelming and simultaneous exhibition of multiple cultures”.




Common threads that ran through postulations on all the panels include the facts that:

☞ Lagos has a provenance and its indigenous character is incontestable.

☞ Access to land does not confer Indigeneity.

☞ Lagos is inherently accommodating of multiple cultures and orientations and should remain so, and

☞ Projection and preservation of heritage should be taken more seriously by the indigenous peoples of Lagos.



An Important Subject of Research

Earlier in his Welcome Address, the Director of IADS-UNILAG, Prof. Muyiwa Falaiye, affirmed the importance of researching Lagos, being a subject of interest to many national and international concerns.

“This workshop is a follow-up on a documentary produced by the Institute two years ago. We discovered, based on the viewership and responses to the video, that there are too many contestations about Lagos and so we decided to extend our search. Here at the IADS, we conduct fair-minded, independent research and that is what we have done with the research on Lagos.”

He commended the duo of Professor Taibat Lawanson and Dr. Abisoye Elesin whose research collaboration, which he fondly described as the “Lawanson-Elesin Consortium”, has continued to win generous grant funding. He also declared the openness of the Institute to receiving funding from non-governmental organisations that would like to commission research studies on any aspect of African Studies.

“Ọmọ Èkó” and “Ará Èkó”

Professor Taibat Lawanson spoke on behalf of the research team. She expressed gratitude to their funders like the African Multiple Cluster of Excellence and the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and doubled down on the significance of Lagos as a subject of research.

“Lagos is a complex city, which is at the centre of many expressions of African epistemologies. It is a melting pot of fusions and hybridities, which has continued to raise the questions of “What is Lagos” and “Who is a Lagosian?” Today’s event is to closely examine some of the factors that are shaping new socio-economic and political trajectories, seeing that Land and Power have become recurrent themes in contestations on Lagos. We are here to look very closely at the distinctions between “Ọmọ Èkó” (Natives of Lagos) and “Ará Èkó” (Residents of Lagos) and how that is daily operationalized in our lived realities”.

An Ongoing Conversation

The blended event was well-attended by a diverse audience of students, scholars, policy makers, indigenes, and residents of Lagos who leveraged the platform to express their respective views on a subject which promises to be an ongoing conversation on national and continental development.

https://unilag.edu.ng/?p=41057
Mynd44 nlfpmod

“Indigeneity is not a rude thing to say. The United Nations Convention on Indigenous Peoples affirms the right of indigenous peoples to express their indigeneity. There is a sharp distinction between Indigenes of Lagos and Citizens of Lagos; and that distinction is irreversible.”

While he re-affirmed the age-long accommodation and hospitality of Lagos, Mr. Shasore admonished that those admirable qualities must not be taken for granted with hair-raising statements like “Lagos is a No Man’s Land”.

This is the education we have been giving to a few people who think Lagos started after capital was moved from now underachieving colonial capital of Calabar to Lagos or when they/their parents travelled several hundreds of kilometres, crossing bridges and rivers to reach Lagos to become “Ará Èkó” .

Lagos has never been for sale and it's history has been well preserved so much that it serves as credible foundation further research and knowledge will be build upon.

Thank you Mr Ṣasore(SAN). May God bless you sir. Thank you University of Lagos (UNILAG) for putting this together. You are fulfilling your mandate to lead in knowledge. I am so proud of my UNILAG.

May God continue to bless Lagos state and the Federal Republic of Nigeria for ever! Check my signature for free stuffs!

Lagos is never a ''No man's land''
It is a native Yoruba land, however like the Biblical Esau, the indigenes lost that bragging rights as the real owners by selling off their lands to these strangers thereby pushing the ''No Man's Land'' narrative. Igbo's are good in real estate & development business but you can never see them selling their family house or central obi for whatever. Only ofeke's do that.

Lagos is a no man's land. If it's not, Tinubu, Ambode and sanwo Olu who are all none indigenes wouldn't have been governors.

Yes, Lagos is a no man's land.

What exactly is the distinction?

If you want to see lots of Yoruba Muslims. Na Lagos dem plenty pass.

FreeStuffsNG:
“Indigeneity is not a rude thing to say. The United Nations Convention on Indigenous Peoples affirms the right of indigenous peoples to express their indigeneity. There is a sharp distinction between Indigenes of Lagos and Citizens of Lagos; and that distinction is irreversible.”

While he re-affirmed the age-long accommodation and hospitality of Lagos, Mr. Shasore admonished that those admirable qualities must not be taken for granted with hair-raising statements like “Lagos is a No Man’s Land”.

This is the education we have been giving to a few people who think Lagos started after capital was moved from now underachieving colonial capital of Calabar to Lagos or when they/ their parents moved to Lagos to become Ara Eko .

Lagos has never been for sale and it's history has been well preserved so much that it serves as credible foundation further research and knowledge will be build upon.

Thank you Mr Ṣasore(SAN). May God bless you sir.

May God continue to bless Lagos state and the Federal Republic of Nigeria for ever! Check my signature for free stuffs!

100%

Adesanya paying his respect to aboriginal Zealanders.

Dagah2:
Lagos is never a ''No man's land''
It is a native Yoruba land, however like the Biblical Esau, the indigenes lost that bragging rights as the real owners by selling off their lands to these strangers who push this narrative to nurse their ego.

Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

Everyone has equal right in this Lagos . Don't come from Ondo or Ekiti and be telling the real Indigines of Lagos who to stay and who to leave .

LagosPrince:
Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

If Anambra also belongs to all Nigerians, then why are you against Fulani in your land. You hate them so much that you even kill the innocent women and children amongst them.

You also don't allow non indigenes in your civil service in Anambra. Even though you are from Owerri, I am just using Anambra as an example.

Dagah2:
Lagos is never a ''No man's land''
It is a native Yoruba land

Stop getting it wrong and disrespecting Lagos indigenes.
You are right that it is not debatable that Lagos is part of Yorubaland. However, that you are not from Lagos doesn't mean that the indigenes of Lagos are faceless or unknown That was why the LP candidate couldn't convince anyone that he is from Lagos. That he thought name is important but didn't know that it is just not enough gave him away.
There are various active platforms and identity links but you just don't know because you are not from Lagos.

opamoses1:
If Anambra also belongs to all Nigerians, then why are you against Fulani in your land. You hate them so much that you even kill the innocent women and children amongst them.

Stop derailing this thread with silly pictures

You can air your opinion without derailing the thread with senseless pictures that proves nothing

LagosPrince:
Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

Everyone has equal right in this Lagos . Don't come from Ondo or Ekiti and be telling the real Indigines of Lagos who to stay and who to leave .

Yes, same way Onitsha and Kano belongs to all Nigerians. But the moment they ask you to provide your LGA/Town identification letter for official purpose, you'll know the difference.

LagosPrince:
Stop derailing this thread with silly pictures

You can air your opinion without derailing the thread with senseless pictures that proves nothing

Where is the silly picture and where is the derailment? Instead of you to answer the question, you start trying to derail the thread yourself.

Dagah2:
Yes, same way Onitsha and Kano belongs to all Nigerians. But the moment they ask you to provide your LGA/Town identification letter for official purpose, you'll know the difference.

Or in Anambra where they only hire Anambra indigenes into their civil service.

FreeStuffsNG:
This is the education we have been giving to a few people who think Lagos started after capital was moved from now underachieving colonial capital of Calabar to Lagos or when they/ their parents moved to Lagos to become Ara Eko .

Lagos has never been for sale and it's history has been well preserved so much that it serves as credible foundation further research and knowledge will be build upon.

The question you should answer yourself is are you an indigene or a resident ?

In case you don’t understand what the learned gentlemen is saying , let me explain it for you .
He’s saying that those of you from other parts of the southwest residing in Lagos can never be indigenes and have no more special status than say someone from Bauchi or Bayelsa .

Do you get it now ?

FreeStuffsNG:
Stop getting it wrong and disrespecting indigenes of Lagos.

You are right that it is not debatable that Lagos is part of Yorubaland. However, that you are not from Lagos doesn't mean that the indigenes of Lagos are faceless or unknown There are various active platforms and identity links but you just don't know because you are not from Lagos.

I'm happy you people are beginning to accept that Lagos belongs to Lagos Indigines alone. Those people from Ondo, Osun, and Ogun claiming Lagos should go back to their state and stop claiming Lagos

FreeStuffsNG:
Stop getting it wrong and disrespecting indigenes of Lagos.

You are right that it is not debatable that Lagos is part of Yorubaland. However, that you are not from Lagos doesn't mean that the indigenes of Lagos are faceless or unknown There are various active platforms and identity links but you just don't know because you are not from Lagos.

What's this one saying? Who is disrespecting the indigenes here?

Hausa, Efik,ijaw,Fulani,itshekiri and host of other tribe won't have problem with this thread but you see it those Osudient and Ubinu people,they will soon be here to show their frustration.

Dagah2:
What's this one saying? Who is disrespecting the indigenes here?

You used Esau in your post and Esau is still regarded in less complimentary ways even by most Christians till date

opamoses1:
Where is the silly picture and where is the derailment? Instead of you to answer the question, you start trying to derail the thread yourself.

Which state are you from? I know you can never be an Indigine of Lagos .

And hey, don't even tell me that Lagos is Yoruba land bullshit. If you don't have Lagos blood flowing in your vein, then forget it you're not different from Musa from kano and chinedu from Enugu living in Lagos

LagosPrince:
I'm happy you people are beginning to accept that Lagos belongs to Lagos Indigines alone.

Also you 👇

LagosPrince:
Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

You are a very confused individual.

Dagah2:
Lagos is never a ''No man's land''
It is a native Yoruba land, however like the Biblical Esau, the indigenes lost that bragging rights as the real owners by selling off their lands to these strangers thereby pushing the ''No Man's Land'' narrative. Igbo's are good in real estate & development business but you can never see them selling their family house or central obi for whatever. Only ofeke's do that.

You're 1st Osu to shook mouth into what doesn't concern you.

This thread is about Omoluabi please dont bring your Osu mentality here.

Bulldozer90:
Lagos is a no man's land. If it's not, Tinubu, Ambode and sanwo Olu who are all none indigenes wouldn't have been governors.

Yes, Lagos is a no man's land.

Second Osu to comment here

immortalcrown:
What exactly is the distinction?

3rd Osu to show interest in Lagos affairs

FreeStuffsNG:
You used Esau in your post and Esau is still regarded in less complimentary ways even by most Christians till date

Know your stand in Lagos @ Dagah2

You're not a true son of Lagos and will never be

LagosPrince:
Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

Everyone has equal right in this Lagos . Don't come from Ondo or Ekiti and be telling the real Indigines of Lagos who to stay and who to leave .

4th Osu

BitterTruth0001:
The question you should answer yourself is are you an indigene or a resident ?

In case you don’t understand what the learned gentlemen is saying , let me explain it for you .
He’s saying that those of you from other parts of the southwest residing in Lagos can never be indigenes and have no more special status than say someone from Bauchi or Bayelsa .

Do you get it now ?

5th Osu here

Lagos belongs to Lagos indigenes.
Envious and covetous bastards should back off.

What you can't accept in your region will not be accepted in the SW.

Nomercie:
3rd Osu to show interest in Lagos affairs

Is this the answer to my question or are you just trying so hard to change the topic?

opamoses1:
Lagos belongs to Lagos indigenes.
Envious and covetous bastards should back off.

What you can't accept in your region will not be accepted in the SW.

We are saying the same thing . Lagos belongs to only Lagos Indigines and not to some miscreants and nuisance from neighbouring states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo constituting nuisance in the state which made the governor to deport about 350 Osun people back to Osun state from Lagos .

LagosPrince:
We are saying the same thing . Lagos belongs to only Lagos Indigines and not to some miscreants and nuisance from neighbouring states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo constituting nuisance in the state which made the governor to deport about 350 Osun people back to Osun state from Lagos .

100%. Just like Peter Obi deported abekeleke people to Ebonyi. Indigenous land belongs to the indigenes. So don't talk nonsense like you earlier stated above in the quote below.

LagosPrince:
Lagos belongs to all Nigerians

opamoses1:
100%. Just like Peter Obi deported abekeleke people to Ebonyi.

I'm happy that you guys from Ogun and oyo are beginning to accept that Lagos is for Lagos Indigines only and will remain like that ..so if you're from Osun Ogun Ondo, Lagos is not your state