| Capital: |
Ikeja |
| Area: |
3,577
sq kilometres |
| Population: |
6,768,670(1997
FOS est.) |
| Language: |
Yoruba |
Location
Lagos State lies
to the south-western part of the Federation. It
shares boundaries with Ogun State both in the
North and East and is bounded on the west by the
Republic of Benin. In the South it stretches for
180 kilometres along the coast of the Atlantic
Ocean. The smallest State in the Federation, it
occupies an area of 3,577 sq km. 22% or 787sq.
km of which consists of lagoons and creeks
History
Before the
creation of the States in 1967, the identity of
Lagos was restricted to the Lagos Island of Eko
(Bini word for war camp). The first settlers in
Eko were the Aworis, who were mostly hunters and
fishermen. They had migrated from Ile-Ife by
stages to the coast at Ebute-Metta.
The Aworis were
later reinforced by a band of Benin warriors and
joined by other Yoruba elements who settled on
the mainland for a while till the danger of an
attack by the warring tribes plaguing Yorubaland
drove them to seek the security of the nearest
island, Iddo, from where they spread to Eko.
By 1851 after the
abolition of the slave trade, there was a great
attraction to Lagos by the repatriates. First
were the Saro, mainly freed Yoruba captives and
their descendants who, having been set ashore in
Sierra Leone, responded to the pull of their
homeland, and returned in successive waves to
Lagos. Having had the privilege of Western
education and christianity, they made remarkable
contributions to education and the rapid
modernisation of Lagos. They were granted land
to settle in the Olowogbowo and Breadfruit areas
of the island.
The Brazilian
returnees, the Aguda, also started arriving in
Lagos in the mid-19th century and brought with
them the skills they had acquired in Brazil.
Most of them were master-builders, carpenters
and masons, and gave the distinct
charaterisitics of Brazilian architecture to
their residential buildings at Bamgbose and
Campos Square areas which form a large
proportion of architectural richness of the
city.
The other two
groups of Lagos State citizens are the Ogu
people of Badagry and its environs, and the
Ijebu in Ikorodu and Epe Local Governments.
Badagry town
houses the first storey building in Nigeria,
built in 1845 and still standing on its original
site.
Badagry's
original name was Gbagle a contraction of the
word Ogbaglee, meaning in Ogu (not Egun as
commonly mis-pronounced and mis-spelt) "a
farmland near the swamp". The Ogu people
are historically reputed to have migrated from
the ancient Ketu.
Kingdom (part of
Oduduwa's Kingdom) and they left Ile-Ife around
the mid-13th century, for Accra in Gold Coast.
The Ga/Ewe (Aja-Ogu) speaking group of today's
Ghana are indeed the kith and kin of the Ogu of
Badagry. The history of Badagry has a
fascinating tradition of Kingship (Wheno-Aholu)
and local administration. The ancient town of
Badagry is divided into eight quarters namely:
Jegba, Ahoriko Awhanjigoh, Boekoh, Wharakoh,
Pesuka and Ganho and its adjoining villages on
both the mainland and island, have for centuries
recognised the Wheno Aholu Akran of Badagry, of
which there have been seventeen from the
earliest times to the present Akran, Menu Toyi I
crowned in 1977.
The Ijebu people
of the Epe and Ikorodu Local Government areas
share a collective heritage with their kith and
kin in the present day Ogun State, but have also
developed strong trade and cultural links with
the entire riverine coastline of Nigeria, with
its interlaced pattern of waters and creeks
which empty into the lagoon and the Atlantic
ocean. By the turn of this century, through
administrative sleight of hand by the British,
all the major towns and settlements of the two
areas had been annexed as part of the
"colony" and the amalgamation in 1914
finally merged Ikorodu with the protectorate.
Local
Government Areas
Agege,
Ajeromi-Ifelodun, Alimosho, Amuwo-Odofin, Apapa,
Badagry, Epe, Eti-Osa, Ibeju/Lekki, Ifako-Ijaye,
Ikeja, Ikorodu, Kosofe, Lagos Island, Lagos
Mainland, Mushin, Ojo, Oshodi-Isolo, Shomolu,
Surulere.
