By Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma, AI-KO
This renaming spree is strategic stupidity – a minefield laid atop Lagos’ ethnic fissures. It solves nothing: not potholes, not hunger, not insecurity. Instead, it offers tribal catharsis for political elites while the city implodes. – AI-KO
Introduction: When the Familiar Becomes Too Painful to Ignore
Tribalism in Nigeria is not just a wound – it is a festering sore. A slow, pulsing ache buried beneath our politics, our institutions, and our daily interactions, erupting over and over with fresh cruelty. I’ve spent years dodging it, building emotional barricades against the venom that drips from headlines and online comment threads. But sometimes, even carefully built detachment crumbles – and the pain floods in.
The recent spate of street renamings in Lagos was, at first, just another episode in Nigeria’s unending reality show of ethnic posturing. I paid it no special attention. I neither read the stories with focus nor took sides. It was one of those symbolic moves we’ve all learned to gloss over, knowing well that today’s furor will become tomorrow’s apathy. But then something happened – something intimate, ugly, and too familiar. On a…
It felt like a slap – not just to the man being told to leave, but to everyone who had ever dared to contribute to a space not defined by their ancestry. This was not some anonymous troll spewing bile. These were educated minds, deeply exposed to the world, shaped by Lagos’s melting pot, now wielding tribal pride like a weapon. It was nauseating. And it reminded me, in the most visceral way possible, that intelligence and success are not inoculations against prejudice.
Soon after, my friend Chuks Ibegbu shared a post urging Ohanaeze to respond – a call that felt both necessary and exhausting. The old dance of outrage had begun once more. But this time, I didn’t turn away. I began to read deeply, to absorb not just the facts but the emotions – the buried frustrations, the cultural scars, the inherited tensions. I saw how naming – something seemingly superficial – had become a battleground of belonging. And I saw how Lagos, a city forged in diversity, was at risk of shrinking into a symbol of exclusion.
Just as I was beginning to weave these reflections together, I came across another story – one that seemed drenched in irony. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was celebrating Dr. Fene Osakwe, an Igbo son of Lagos, who. was named the Cyber Personality of the Year in the United Kingdom. The governor’s praise was effusive. Lagos, he said, was proud to be associated with Dr. Osakwe. His triumph was proof of Nigerian brilliance, Lagosian resilience, African talent. And yet, at the same moment, Igbo names were quietly being scrubbed from street signs across the same city that now basked in his global glory.
This contradiction knocked the wind out of me. We celebrate the Igbo when they rise abroad – but when it’s time to honor their roots and contributions at home, we choose erasure. We bask in their excellence, but hesitate to include them in the symbols of civic memory. It’s not just hypocrisy. It’s betrayal. And it stings more than any cyber award can soothe.
What rankles isn’t merely the renaming itself – it’s the casual disregard behind it. It’s the way tribal loyalty has become so normalized that even the most accomplished among us use it to gatekeep. It’s the deeper question: can you truly belong in Nigeria if your name, your language, your tribe remains permanently “othered”? When do contributions become part of the soil – and not just footprints to be washed away?
My anger is not fleeting. It is cumulative. It is the kind of anger born of repeated observations – of patterns that leave some people eternally waiting outside the gates. And yet it is not directionless. I write this with clarity, not chaos. With a demand for introspection, not vengeance. This isn’t an indictment of Yoruba people, nor a romanticization of Ndigbo. It’s an unmasking of the broader sickness – the ways our politics, our urban design, our public discourse still serve tribal interests above civic dignity.
This essay is my reckoning. It’s the product of watching brilliance denied, unity postponed, and a city lose pieces of itself one name at a time. It is my refusal to pretend anymore. My quiet protest against a structure that celebrates Dr. Osakwe for embodying Lagos’s promise – and then betrays that promise on the next street corner.
If Lagos is truly Africa’s global city, it must prove it – not just in award speeches and tech boards – but in street names, local councils, and everyday gestures of belonging. Otherwise, we will keep raising stars for the world to admire while dimming their legacy at home.
And that is a contradiction too deep to ignore any longer.
Lagos breathes history, a living organism exhaling the layered narratives of its centuries-old past. Its foundations rest in Eko, that modest Awori fishing settlement cradled by lagoons, where canoes sliced through brackish waters long before steamships clouded the horizon. This city’s explosive metamorphosis into West Africa’s throbbing commercial heart wasn’t solitary but a saga shaped by three intersecting challenges: geography, historical timing, and the relentless press of external ambitions. Colonial designs, etched in the unyielding concrete of warehouses and the skeletal steel of bridges, yoked Lagos violently to global trade routes while its watery foundations whispered warnings of instability.
Completed in 1901, the Carter Bridge was more than infrastructure; it was a colonial suture stitching the privileged isolation of Lagos Island to the burgeoning, restless mainland, accelerating an exodus of diverse peoples into nascent, often unforgiving suburbs. Places like Ajegunle – the name itself a Yoruba incantation, “wealth has landed” – became crucibles of this relentless transformation. Drawn by the siren call of dockside labor and market-stall dreams, Igbo, Hausa, Urhobo, Edo, and countless others converged, turning swamps thick with mosquitoes and colonial refuse dumps into vibrant, if perpetually chaotic, neighborhoods pulsing with raw life.
By the mid-20th century, Ajegunle’s half-million residents represented a staggering mosaic of over 50 distinct ethnic groups, its markets humming with the melodic cacophony of distinct “AJ city” pidgin English – that uniquely Nigerian lingua franca born of necessity – its streets an uncurated, living archive of communal enterprise and shared survival. You could smell the history in the smoky tang of suya grills, hear it in the rhythmic hammering of aluminum pot makers, feel it in the press of bodies navigating alleys barely wider than a man’s outstretched arms.
The origins of Lagos as Eko reveal a foundational truth often obscured by contemporary identity politics: the Awori people, the lagoon’s first settlers, cultivated an ethos of radical accommodation that defied the conqueror’s logic. Arriving from Ile-Ife under Olofin’s leadership in the 14th century, they established communities like Iddo and Ebute-Metta (“three wharves”) not through subjugation, but through symbiotic adaptation to the aquatic landscape. Their governance centered on the Idejo chiefs – landowning elders who allocated territory based on communal need rather than exclusionary ownership.
This system reflected a deep wisdom: just as lagoons receive rivers without resistance, the Awori embraced newcomers, understanding that abundance flows from openness. When Benin warriors arrived in the 16th century, the Awori negotiated coexistence; though the Oba of Benin installed a dynasty, Awori customs persisted, and “Eko” remained the indigenous name. Even the Portuguese rebranding to “Lagos” (“lakes”) in 1472 became only another layer in the cultural sediment, not an erasure. This ethos materialized in tangible practices that shaped Lagos’ DNA. Unlike rigid European land tenure, Awori traditions viewed territory as a communal trust. The Idejo allocated plots to Yoruba, Edo, and later returnee communities like the Brazilian Agudas, who transformed Lagos Island with Afro-Portuguese architecture, enabling the 19th-century influx of Saro (Sierra Leonean) and Amaro (Brazilian) freedpeople, whose skills in education and masonry modernized the city.
Awori-Benin collaboration turned Lagos into West Africa’s largest pre-colonial port, with cloth and slave trades (however morally fraught) weaving the city into global networks; by the 1780s, it sent ambassadors to Brazil, becoming among the first to recognize Brazilian independence – a testament to its outward-facing diplomacy. Facing seasonal floods and saline soils, the Awori pragmatically absorbed agricultural techniques from Nupe migrants and fishing technologies from Ijebu canoe-makers. Their language became a vessel for integration: Yoruba absorbed Edo terms like “Oba” (king) and Portuguese words like “mesmo” (same), evolving into Lagos’ distinctive creole.
Tragically, the 21st century witnesses the near-total erosion of this legacy. Descendants of the Awori – now dominant in 16 of Lagos’ 20 LGAs – have abandoned ancestral wisdom for zero-sum territorialism. Three historical ruptures enabled this shift. British annexation in 1861 introduced Western land titling, fracturing communal stewardship into parcels; the 1917 Township Ordinance codified segregation, reserving Ikoyi for Europeans while confining natives to swampy “Native Reservations” like Ajegunle, transforming land into a commodity to hoard, not a current to share. Oil wealth (discovered 1956) fused ethnicity with resource control; as Lagos ballooned from 655,246 (1963) to 21 million today, politicians weaponized “indigeneity,” falsely painting migrants as competitors rather than co-builders.
Google Maps’ instant updates of Yoruba street names over erased Igbo ones (e.g., Uzoh→Kalejaiye) symbolize a new, tech-enabled cultural cleansing. Rejecting accommodation has unleashed cascading crises. Migrants drive 90% of Lagos’ informal economy – from Igbo in Alaba electronics traders to Hausa okada riders like Aliu, who remit earnings to Sokoto while sustaining Lagos’ transit; harassing them shrinks the tax base, with 70% of properties lacking titles due to bureaucratic extortion, starving governance of revenue. Eighteen informal settlements house Northern IDPs fleeing Boko Haram; denied addresses, their children can’t enroll in schools. Mary, a Benue refugee selling akara in Eleko, voices their disillusionment: “In my village, I farmed yams. Here, I’m ‘Hausa beggar’ even though I’m Tiv,” a systemic exclusion breeding the very insecurity used to justify their marginalization. Awori hydrology understood lagoons as living systems; today, draining wetlands for luxury towers (like Eko Atlantic) intensifies flooding, with the 2012 deluge that submerged Victoria Island being nature’s bill for forgetting fluidity.
Lagos’ destiny was warped from inception by geographical paradox. Nestled on the Bight of Benin, its location offered deep-water access coveted by European powers, yet this came at a terrible cost: a labyrinthine network of islands, lagoons, and marshy floodplains covering nearly 25% of its territory. This aqueous landscape, while defensible for early Awori fishermen and later Benin warriors, became a nightmare for sustainable urbanization. As the city exploded from 762,000 souls in 1960 to over 21 million today – growing at a breakneck 3.63% annually – it sprawled across fragile wetlands and sandbars, elevating flood risks to existential threats, making the 2012 deluge that submerged vast tracts geography’s revenge on heedless expansion.
Compounding this was cursed historical timing. Lagos emerged as a global player during the zenith of the Atlantic slave trade; Portuguese slavers, arriving in the 1470s, rebranded Eko as “Lagos,” transplanting a toponym from Portugal’s Algarve coast, forever binding the city to a brutal global commerce. By the 1780s, under Oba Akinsemoyin, it became the Northern Hemisphere’s largest slave exporter, its wealth drenched in human suffering.
This poisoned inheritance haunted its next transformation: becoming Britain’s beachhead for “legitimate commerce” after the 1851 bombardment and annexation. Colonial officers like Albert Thompson weaponized urban planning, codifying segregation through ordinances like the 1917 Township Act that reserved modern infrastructure for “European Reservations” while consigning natives – and later migrants – to neglected zones like Ajegunle. Worst of all was Lagos’ relentless role-shifting, imposed without respite. From Awori fishing village (14th century) to Benin military outpost (16th century), to slave emporium (18th century), to British colonial capital (1861), to independent Nigeria’s capital (1960), and finally to commercial megacity after the capital moved to Abuja (1991) – each transition layered new functions onto inadequate foundations.
The city became a palimpsest of identities, each era demanding infrastructure it couldn’t sustain. As federal capital, it sucked in migrants but lacked coherent planning; post-1991, it became an economic powerhouse yet retained de facto governmental functions, with key agencies resisting relocation to Abuja, producing a schizophrenic urbanism – a “Gucci jacket over a cheap weave,” as residents wryly note – where gleaming financial districts like Victoria Island coexist with settlements lacking clean water, all strained by a population growing by 3,500 – 4,000 newcomers daily.
Yet herein lies the miracle: against these curses, Lagos’ true cardiac pulse emanates not from its geography or imposed roles, but from the relentless convergence of peoples. Its 21 million inhabitants today represent all 200+ Nigerian ethnic groups alongside global diasporas – Saro returnees from Sierra Leone, Amaro descendants of Brazilian slaves, Syrian traders, Chinese engineers, and Lebanese merchants. Nearly a quarter are Igbo, whose industriousness helped build the city before and after the Biafra conflict, transforming malarial dumps like Goriola Street into commercial arteries.
This mosaic thrives not despite but because of the city’s fraught trajectory. Colonial infrastructure failures birthed Igbo-funded “mammy wagons” that mobilized the metropolis; state neglect in Ajegunle spurred communal water projects and self-funded schools. The Alaba International Market, a global electronics hub, rose from migrant ingenuity in the face of institutional voids. Nollywood – now the world’s second-largest film industry by output – exemplifies this alchemy.
Born in the 1990s amidst economic collapse, it leveraged Lagos’ chaos, using the city’s streets as backlots and its polyglot tensions as plotlines. Directors like Jason Njoku of iROKOtv harnessed the hunger of young migrants like David Adeoti, who ascended from managing a Satellite Town internet café to shaping digital cinema empires. As Adeoti declares: “It’s going to sell itself” – a metaphor for Lagos itself, where desperation fuels innovation.
It is against this deep, resonant backdrop that the recent renaming of streets strikes such a raw nerve. Streets like Imo Eze, Uzoh, and Ebubedike vanished overnight, replaced without ceremony by Yoruba appellations like Layiwola Oluwa and Kalejaiye Adeboye. The erasure was swift, clinical. Google Maps updated these changes, rendering the vanishing digitally permanent, scrubbing Igbo resonance from the virtual landscape as efficiently as physical signs were hauled down. The council’s justification – “administrative necessity” and “validation of names” – rings hollow to residents like Mr. Agu, whose bones have known Uzoh Street’s dust for forty years: “We were not consulted. This feels like an erasure. Like they are wiping away the proof we were ever here, that we ever built anything”.
Such unilateral action transcends bureaucratic tidiness; it actively frays the delicate threads binding communities to the ground beneath their feet. It whispers a dangerous question: Whose history deserves etching in the city’s skin? To grasp the weight of this moment demands revisiting Lagos’ segregated genesis. Colonial town planning was never neutral; it was a weapon disguised as order. Albert Thompson, appointed Town Planning Officer in 1928, designed Yaba Housing Estate under policies steeped in racial ideology.
The Township Ordinance of 1917 formalized apartheid: “European Reservations” for officials, “Native Reservations” for the masses. Infrastructure followed hierarchy – tarmac roads, piped water, electricity for European enclaves, while suburbs like Ajegunle festered. Migrants, disproportionately Igbo and non Yoruba speaking Nigerians, became alchemists of adversity, transforming Goriola Street from a colonial dumpsite into a commercial artery through communal labor. The colonial logic – divide, segregate, control – left a toxic legacy: the conflation of space with ethnic ownership.
This renaming crusade, framed as cultural reclamation, risks three significant dangers. First, Historical Amnesia as Policy. Names like “Imo Eze” encode lived history – migrants draining swamps bucket by bucket, building markets brick by scavenged brick, funding schools where the state failed.
Erasing them severs place from people, echoing colonial tactics of renaming to sever indigenous ties. As urban scholar Basirat Oyalowo warns, unguided expansion already strains social cohesion; top-down erasure accelerates fragmentation. Imagine generations navigating “Layiwola Oluwa Street,” oblivious that the ground once memorialized struggles in “Imo Eze.” Second, it ignites Tinder of Division. Lagos bears scars of ethnic conflagration – 1967, 2015. When governance fails – open sewers, cratered roads, joblessness – scapegoating thrives. Renaming fuels narratives that “outsiders” usurped prosperity.
Ajegunle’s Seriki Hausa warns: “Nothing can send us away… we belong here… but they cannot pursue us”. Social media amplifies this toxicity, labeling renaming “cultural cleansing” or celebrating “Yoruba dominance”. Third, it masks Hypocrisy of Symbolic Gentrification. While names change, Ajegunle’s crises deepen – water shortages, power outages strangling businesses, children playing in garbage mountains. Meanwhile, luxury high-rises encroach, displacing the poor under “renewal” guises. Renaming distracts from the state’s retreat from services. As Olanrewaju Suraju of HEDA urges: “Focus on healthcare, education, real infrastructure – not divisive symbols!”
For centuries, Lagos has functioned as a vast, involuntary experiment in human convergence – a place where geography cursed it with strategic desirability while history burdened it with relentless reinvention. Nestled on the Bight of Benin, its labyrinthine lagoons and islands offered deep-water access coveted by European powers, yet its aqueous foundations proved catastrophically ill-suited for sustainable urbanization. This geographical paradox birthed its first dissonance: a city physically fragmented yet forced into unity by colonial ambition. The Portuguese arrival in 1472 inaugurated cycles of cultural imposition, rebranding Eko as “Lagos” while transforming it into the Northern Hemisphere’s largest slave exporter by the 1780s – a role that seeded its economy with the blood money of 200,000 shipped souls.
British annexation in 1861 intensified this dissonance, weaponizing urban planning through figures like Albert Thompson, whose 1928 Yaba Housing Estate enforced racial apartheid via the 1917 Township Ordinance. European Reservations enjoyed tarmac roads and piped water; Native Reservations like Ajegunle festered in swamps, receiving the human overflow displaced by colonial extraction. Yet herein lies the city’s perverse genius: these very policies of exclusion ignited its absorptive capacity.
Migrants – Igbo, Efik, Bini, Hausa escaping northern droughts, Saro returnees from Sierra Leone – transformed neglected spaces through communal alchemy. By 2023, with 21 million people growing at 3.63% annually, Lagos became less a city than a demographic big bang – a place where over 200 ethnic groups collided daily. The dissonance was visceral: ethnic riots (1967, 2015) erupted when state neglect festered, yet the city’s GDP soared to $102 billion, powered by the very minorities it periodically scapegoated.
The Igbo journey mirrors Lagos’ own narrative of fracture and adaptation, but with a crucial divergence: where the city absorbed passively, Ndigbo transformed Diaspora into intellectual capital. Post-1967, their dispersal was not just demographic but epistemological. Like the Lebanese diaspora – whose 8–14 million members dwarf Lebanon’s domestic population of 5 million – Igbo migrants turned marginalization into a web of transnational leverage. In Guangzhou, they dominate electronics supply chains; in Johannesburg, they command retail networks; in Silicon Valley, they are in AI startups.
Their 25% presence in Lagos (over 5 million people) belies their structural dominance: 60% of Ajegunle’s small businesses, 70% of Alaba International Market’s $3 billion annual turnover, and the foundational labor behind Nollywood – now the world’s second-largest film industry, producing 2,500 films annually by 2019. Yet their true evolution lies beyond material accumulation. Centuries of trauma – from the slave ports of Calabar to the pogroms of Kano – forged a cultural neuroplasticity, an ability to navigate cognitive dissonance not as pathology but as strategic fuel.
Festinger’s theory posits that inconsistency between beliefs and reality triggers psychological tension; for Ndigbo, this tension became pedagogical. When denied Lagosian land titles, they pioneered flexible capital pools, enabling cross-border investments from Cameroon to Canada. When street names like vanished, they digitized memory through platforms like Igbo Area TV, reaching 500,000 subscribers. When excluded from governance, they mirrored the Jewish diaspora’s lobbying playbook, leveraging networks like Ohanaeze Ndigbo to lobby and influence human rights councils.
This cognitive armor allowed them to exploit contradictions others found paralyzing. A 2023 study of Lagosian consumer behavior revealed Igbo traders excelled in resolving “post-purchase dissonance” – turning buyer’s remorse into loyalty by reframing product flaws as opportunities for “customization”. Where the Lebanese diaspora preserved identity through culinary schools and religious endowments, Ndigbo weaponized language: Duolingo Igbo courses saw 300,000 enrollments by 2024, making it Africa’s fastest-growing indigenous language on the platform.
Facing the current renaming violence – a digital-era erasure where Google Maps updates overwrite “Uzoh Street” with “Kalejaiye” in seconds – Ndigbo’s response appears superficially passive. Yet this stillness is neither surrender nor apathy; it is the application of centuries-deep data analytics. Cognitive dissonance research confirms that groups resolving inconsistency through persuasion (rather than force) achieve 73% greater cohesion; the Igbo approach mirrors this.
While Lagos allocates huge sums to rename streets, Igbo communities redirect resources into boreholes and schools; the Ajegunle Community Project’s youth coding academies have trained 12,000 students since 2020, creating a parallel economy untethered to municipal symbolism. When Yoruba-centric signboards appear, QR codes linking to oral histories of Igbo dredgers are subtly materializing beside them; at Alaba Market, “Unity Way” stickers overlay new signs, asserting hybrid identity.
Leveraging diaspora wealth ($30 billion in annual remittances), they replicate the Chinese Huaqiao model, funding industrial clusters in Aba and Nnewi; these zones now manufacture 40% of Nigeria’s automotive parts, reducing Lagos’ chokehold. “He who holds a child down holds himself down.” This proverb distills the Igbo calculus: Lagos’ current exclusionism will self-sabotage. As climate change inundates Victoria Island (projected 2ft sea-level rise by 2050), and as youth unemployment hits 45%, the state will need Igbo and non indigenous capital and ingenuity to survive.
Ndigbo’s patience is thus a time-release investment – a wager that Lagos, like the proverbial wrestler pinning a child, will exhaust itself. Their endurance is not passivity but the application of historical algorithms: dissonance, when metabolized through communal intelligence, becomes the software for perpetual reinvention. While others fight for street names, they are building the next Lagos – in cyberspace, in diaspora hubs, in the collective RAM of a people who have turned exile into oxygen.
In this climate, Ndigbo need not shout; their legacy murmurs through Lagos’ foundations. When colonial transport collapsed, Igbo entrepreneurs funded “mammy wagons.” When Ajegunle thirsted, they dug boreholes. Their ingenuity birthed Markets across Lagos; their artistry gave us many artists. From Apapa’s docks to Yaba’s tech hubs, Igbo hands continue to mix concrete, programme software, stock shelves. This isn’t grievance – it’s geometric fact. As Lagos exploded today, Igbo labor continue to be part of the pillar bearing the weight.
Lagos is not, and has never been, a no man’s land. To claim such is to misunderstand its very essence, to mistake its boundless dynamism for vacancy. It has an owner. It has owners. It belongs to someone. But the possessive pronouns we clutch so fiercely – mine, yours, theirs – shatter against the city’s relentless tide. The deeper, more enduring truth, the one that hums beneath the cacophony of competing claims and the sting of recent erasures, is this: Lagos’s true owner is PROGRESS. Not progress defined only by soaring GDP or gleaming skyscrapers, but Progress as the inexorable force of becoming, the perpetual motion of assimilation and transformation that is the city’s lifeblood. Its genius, its very survival against the curses of geography, fractured history, and relentless pressure, lies in its preternatural ability to absorb everyone and everything that washes upon its shores, that tries to subject it or subsume it. It is an alchemist of circumstance.
The Portuguese slavers came with their crosses and chains, imprinting a foreign name; the British colonizers arrived with their maps and ordinances, stitching segregation into its fabric; waves of migrants, fleeing war or chasing dreams, poured into its neglected marshes, speaking tongues unfamiliar to the lagoon’s original whispers. Empires rose and fell, economic doctrines waxed and waned, tribes surged and settled. People come and go, tribes and cultures rise, crest, and sometimes recede, but Lagos remains. Not static, never static, but enduring precisely because it absorbs.
It takes the Igbo trader’s resilience, the Hausa merchant’s networks, the Yoruba elder’s wisdom, the Edo artisan’s skill, the returnee’s cosmopolitanism, the desperation of the displaced, the ambition of the arriviste – it takes them all, not as separate threads, but as fibres spun into the ever-thickening, ever-evolving cord of its own unique story, woven indelibly into its very DNA. It metabolizes conflict, hardship, and diversity not into weakness, but into a ferocious, resilient vitality. The frantic energy of Alaba, the rhythmic pulse of Ajegunle, the calculated buzz of Victoria Island – these are all manifestations of this ongoing, collective creation, this dance with Progress.
This perspective forces us to confront the deep transience of our current battles over nomenclature and belonging. The fierce passions ignited by a street sign changed today, the visceral pain of a name erased, the triumphant declarations of reclamation – these are human dramas, deeply felt and politically potent in the now. Yet, stand back for a moment, gaze across the sweep of centuries that Lagos has already witnessed.
Long after the names we fight for with such fervor today – whether Imo Eze or Layiwola Oluwa – have faded from maps and memories, long after these particular stories of arrival, struggle, erasure, and assertion have dissolved into the city’s foundational mythos, Lagos will still be here. The lagoon will still lap against its shores, perhaps higher. New peoples, drawn by new dreams or fleeing new calamities, will arrive, speaking languages perhaps yet unformed. They will name streets and neighbourhoods with words resonant to their journeys, their heroes, their hopes.
New industries will rise from the ruins or the swamps of the old, new cultural forms will erupt from the collision of traditions we cannot yet imagine. Lagos will absorb them too, weaving these new threads into its ever-more complex tapestry. It will be a city remade, yet recognizably itself – a place defined by its relentless forward motion, its capacity to hold multitudes, its refusal to be permanently claimed by any single narrative or group. The current struggle over names, however painful and symbolically significant, is a single frame in a vast, unspooling film.
Therefore, clinging to notions of exclusive ownership, whether framed as historical primacy or cultural reclamation, is ultimately a resistance against the city’s deepest nature. It is an attempt to dam a river that has always flowed towards the open sea. Lagos belongs to no-one but Progress. To truly serve the city, to honor its spirit, is not to narrow its story but to widen the embrace. It is to build institutions that reflect its pluralism, to invest in infrastructure that uplifts all its makers, to celebrate the hybrid heroes – the Amunekes, the Showkeys – who embody its blended soul. It is to understand that the strength drawn from acknowledging every layer of its making, every hand that shaped its streets and its spirit, fuels the very Progress it serves. To erase a thread is not to strengthen the fabric, but to risk its unravelling.
The openness we must champion is not naivety, but a grave recognition of Lagos’s timeless mandate: to be the crucible where differences meet, mingle, and are forged anew in the relentless, unifying fire of becoming. That is its true ownership. That is its indomitable, unyielding Progress. Our task is not to possess it, but to participate in its magnificent, unfolding story with dignity, wisdom, and an unwavering commitment to the horizon it forever seeks.
Nigeria’s genius lies in pluralism. Lagos could have chosen participatory memory through multicultural commissions proposing hybrid names – “Daddy Showkey Way” honoring an Ajegunle icon transcending ethnicity, “Unity Market Road” reflecting Alaba’s shared hustle. It could have focused infrastructure as inheritance, redirecting renaming budgets to water pipes and roads, upgrading slums with residents like the Ajegunle Community Project. It could have celebrated heroes without borders, figures like Emmanuel Amuneke or Kunle Adeyemi (architect of Makoko’s floating schools).
Lagos, that magnetic hub of layered histories, has long served as a fertile ground for talent drawn from across Nigeria’s rich ethnic tapestry. Within this dynamic environment, numerous Igbo artists – spanning music, performance, and the visual arts – have either been born or raised, absorbing the city’s relentless cosmopolitan pulse while remaining deeply connected to their cultural roots. Their journeys and successes vividly illustrate the vibrant interplay between Igbo identity and Lagos’s unique urban energy.
The music scene resonates powerfully with this fusion. Singer Chidinma Ekile, known for the hit “Kedike” and her MTN Project Fame victory, hails from Imo State but was born and raised entirely within Lagos, absorbing its chaos at Surulere’s roadside bukas and turning it into gospel-infused soul. Similarly, Afropop star Yemi Alade, famed for “Johnny,” carries maternal Igbo heritage from Abia State and grew up in Lagos, attending the University of Lagos (UNILAG); her Abia roots didn’t dilute her music; they merged with UNILAG’s lecture halls to birth “Johnny,” an anthem that swept the continent. Reggae-dancehall artist Patoranking, originating from Ebonyi State, also claims Lagos as his birthplace and childhood home; his voice, honed in Lagos’ slums, now echoes across continents.
The city’s streets, particularly Ajegunle, shaped Afrobeats singer Kcee (Anambra State), who fused Ebonyi’s highlife harmonies with Lagos’ street-hop to create “Limpopo,” while it served as the crucial launchpad for the careers of rappers Illbliss (Imo State), who mentored a generation of Lagos rappers from his Ogba base, and the iconic Igbo-language rapper Phyno (Enugu State), who moved there specifically to pursue music and redefined Afropop with Igbo linguistics. Even the globally renowned duo P-Square (Peter & Paul Okoye from Anambra State), though raised in Jos, saw their phenomenal career truly flourish in Lagos, selling out London’s O2 Arena and defining 2000s African pop. Afrobeats singer and producer Tekno (Ebonyi State), who established his career base in the metropolis, saw his “Pana” become the unofficial anthem of Lagos’ danfo drivers.
This cultural mosaic extends beyond sound to encompass visual and multidisciplinary expression. Visual artist and autism advocate Kanyeyachukwu Tagbo-Okeke, of Anambra descent, was born and raised in Lagos; his work – bursting with Igbo motifs and neurodiversity advocacy – literally paints the city’s landscape, transforming the same sidewalks now being stripped of Igbo names. Media personality and producer Emmanuel Ugolee, from Abia State, built his prominent career firmly within the Lagos landscape. While writer and multidisciplinary artist Akwaeke Emezi (Abia State) was raised partly abroad, Lagos distinctly features within their complex and celebrated body of work like Freshwater, imbued with Igbo spirituality. Even artist Chiizii, operating within the diaspora yet possessing Igbo heritage, incorporates palpable Lagos influences and uli patterns into their visual art and design.
Collectively, these artists stand as compelling proof that ethnic origin need not limit opportunity within Nigeria’s bustling cultural capital. Their achievements, born from the unique alchemy of Igbo heritage and Lagosian upbringing, challenge narrow narratives and affirm that when Lagos embraces its inherent diversity, it transforms into an unparalleled launchpad for creative brilliance, weaving a truly national tapestry from its many vibrant threads. Their brilliance lies in this very alchemy: taking the fragments of a fractured nation and forging something whole. Yet when the city inscribes its streets, their names vanish like whispers in a storm.
The bitter truth is this: these artists are Lagos. The hypocrisy is glaring. Olamide – undeniably influential – gets a bus stop renamed in his honor, while Illbliss remains invisible to the city’s naming elite. King Sunny Ade’s legacy earns him a roadway, but P-Square are deemed “too Jos” or “too Igbo” for such recognition. Even Tekno is treated as a transient guest in the city he soundtracked. The message is unmistakable: You may feed Lagos’ soul, but you’ll never be of its soil.
No story captures this erasure more starkly than that of Kanyeyachukwu Tagbo-Okeke, the 24-year-old visual artist whose murals adorn Lagos’ walls even as the city scrubs away his people’s names from its streets. Yet the same officials who commission his art would never dare name an alley “Tagbo-Okeke Way.” Why? Because his identity is seen as adjacent to Lagos, not intrinsic – a cruel irony for a man whose brushes capture the city’s heartbeat.
So we ask again: What more must they do? Must Flavour abandon his “Ada Ada” highlife to sing only in Yoruba? Should Akwaeke Emezi bleach the Igbo spirituality from Freshwater to satisfy naming committees? Will Chiizii have to erase the uli patterns from her designs to “qualify” as Lagosian? The tragedy is that Lagos happily exploits Igbo creativity – Nollywood scripts, Afrobeats hooks, gallery exhibitions – as cultural capital while denying its creators the dignity of place. Streets are named after politicians who loot the city’s wealth, while the artists who gift it global relevance are ignored.
If Lagos truly believes in its “melting pot” myth, let it prove it. Rename Allen Avenue “P-Square Boulevard” to honor the twins who put Nigerian pop on the map. Paint “Phyno Alley” in Agege to celebrate the rapper who made Igbo rap mainstream. Install “Kanyeyachukwu Arts Square” in Yaba to immortalize the artist who turned autism stigma into public beauty. Anything less isn’t just hypocrisy – it’s cultural theft. These artists didn’t just pass through Lagos; they reimagined it. A city that erases them erases the best of itself.
A tree cannot stand without roots, but it cannot grow without branches. The Igbo and other ethnic roots of Lagos’ artistic canopy run deep. To sever them is to kill the tree. These contradictions pulse through the lives of Lagos’ own children – those born in its maternity wards, raised in its alleyways, who breathed its humid air long before they understood the weight of their surnames. Take Oritse Femi, whose voice echoes the grit of Ajegunle’s tenements, his lyrics a raw chronicle of survival where open sewers flow beside Pentecostal vigils. Born in Lagos General Hospital to Delta State parents, his artistry – like his anthem “Double Wahala” – is pure Lagos alchemy, yet his identity remains scrutinized, tethered to Warri by bureaucratic imagination.
Or consider Odion Ighalo, who kicked his first football on Ajegunle’s refuse-strewn pitches, dreaming under corrugated roofs that leaked ambition. Though his birth certificate stamps him Lagosian, his Edo heritage shadows his legacy, as if a boy who dodged tidal floods to score goals for Nigeria must perpetually prove he belongs. And what of Ray Emodi, Enugu’s blood in Lagos’ veins? Raised in the mainland’s concrete maze, his Nollywood portrayals of urban angst – from “Collision Course” to “The Blood Covenant” – are love letters to the city that forged him, even as exclusion whispers, “You are guest, not heir.”
These are not migrants, but products of Lagos’ soil. Bella Shmurda’s Okokomaiko laments, Solid Star’s Delta-infused Afrobeat, Victor Osimhen’s sprint from Olusosun dumpsites to Serie A glory – all embody the city’s soul, yet their identities are fractured by a cruel duality: birth certificates stamped “Lagos,” but identity cards stamped “outsider.” When Ajegunle’s streets vanish Igbo names it erases not just signs, but the very proof that Oritse Femi’s anthems, Ighalo’s goals, and Emodi’s scripts are Lagos’ DNA. The renaming crusade thus betrays a devastating irony: a city built by the children of many rivers now denies their tributaries ever met its sea.
Lagos’ greatness springs from absorbing all who shape it – and to deny their belonging is to unravel its soul. The stories of Ighalo, Femi, and Emodi aren’t footnotes; they are the manifesto of the city’s truest self.
“He who holds a child down holds himself down.” “He who keeps a child’s gift up, will when his hands hurt bring it down.” These Igbo proverbs distill exclusion’s folly. Lagos’ leaders, zealously “Yorubanizing” space, forget the child – Ndigbo, the migrant – is the city’s muscle and marrow. To pin the child cripples the body. Ajegunle’s streets, like Nigeria itself, were built by many hands. Their names are palimpsests of shared struggle. When we lift each other – when “Imo Eze” and “Layiwola Oluwa” coexist – true wealth lands. And hands that strained to hurt will lower the gift to find it unbroken. The tapestry remains whole only when every thread is seen, every color valued, every weaver remembered. To unmake memory is to unravel the city itself – a final curse it cannot survive.
We stand, all of us, rightly proud and fiercely protective of the tapestries that define us – the vibrant threads of Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Edo, Awori, and countless other identities that give texture and color to our existence. These are the legacies whispered in proverbs, danced in ceremonies, and etched into the very names of places now contested.
This pride is not just valid; it is the bedrock of cultural resilience, the anchor in a turbulent world. Yet, beneath this rich mosaic of distinct identities pulses a deeper, more fundamental rhythm: the common, shared heartbeat of our humanity. This is not some airy abstraction, but the very bedrock upon which progress is built and civilization advances. It is the irreducible recognition that pain feels the same in any language, that a mother’s hope for her child transcends ethnicity, that dignity and the desire for a better life are universal currencies.
Lagos, in its tumultuous, glorious history, stands as the ultimate testament to this truth. Its rise from Eko to megacity was not forged in the furnace of ethnic purity, but in the crucible of shared struggle and mutual reliance. The Awori wisdom of embracing tributaries wasn’t naive idealism; it was pragmatism applied to human society – understanding that the lagoon grows richer, deeper, more resilient when it welcomes the rivers, however turbulent their flow. The Igbo trader building commerce, the Hausa Bureau de change and labourers, the Saro educator establishing schools in Lagos Island, the Lebanese, Chinese, Bini and several others – their individual dreams and communal contributions, rooted in their unique identities, collectively became the city’s lifeblood, its DNA, its chaotic, undeniable vitality.
To fracture this shared project, to retreat into the narrow-minded obscurantism of “us versus them,” to weaponize identity as a tool for erasure rather than a facet of belonging, is not merely a political misstep; it is a profound civilizational regression. It is trading the vast, fertile delta created by converging rivers for the stagnant, diminishing pool of a single, isolated stream. It is choosing the brittle security of walls over the dynamic strength of bridges.
This obscurantism, this fixation on “purity” and exclusionary ownership, is ultimately a choice for obscurity – a wilful dimming of the city’s brightest potential on the global stage. Consider the historical counterpoint: when Lagos embraced its role as a melting pot, however fraught, it became a beacon. The collaboration between Awori land custodians and Benin warriors created a pre-colonial powerhouse. The openness to Saro and Amaro returnees brought architectural innovation and educational advancement. The absorption of Igbo entrepreneurial energy before and after the Civil War supercharged its informal economy and birthed global markets.
That is why the recent campaign to rename streets across Lagos is not just an exercise in administrative tinkering; it is, at its core, an act of cultural arson masquerading as governance. This is not the benign, bureaucratic updating of signposts that officials would have us believe. Instead, it constitutes a reckless and calculated move to ignite Nigeria’s most sensitive and volatile fault lines. The outcry echoing from every corner of the nation transcends mere noise – it is the anguished voice of a people witnessing the deliberate rewriting of their shared story.
Consider the saga of the Charly Boy Bus Stop. For years, this spot was more than a transit point; it functioned as a living monument to resistance, a place named for Charles Oputa – Charly Boy – a man who spent decades staring down military dictatorships and speaking truth to power. The abrupt decision to obliterate his name and substitute it with that of Olamide, a gifted but apolitical pop star, was not an act of cultural celebration. It represented state-sponsored expungement, a pointed message that the state prefers compliant celebrities over defiant citizens.
Isaac Asabor called it a “spiteful rewriting of history meant to silence dissent,” and he was not exaggerating. The timing was revealing: this renaming occurred alongside a slew of others, all seemingly designed to glorify figures aligned with the ruling APC, such as the rechristening of Ilaje Road to King Sunny Ade Road and Bariga Road to Bola Tinubu Way.
The symbolism was unmistakable, particularly to human rights activist Omoyele Sowore, who declared, “This is a calculated effort to delete voices that challenge power. Lagos belongs to no single tribe or godfather.” The surreptitiousness of the operation – signs changed under cover of darkness – exposed a government fearful of its own people, a regime that would rather erase uncomfortable memories than confront them.
The official justification for these changes claims they “validate” Lagos’ identity. But in practice, this serves as a thinly veiled excuse for ethnic favoritism. In neighborhoods like Ajegunle, streets bearing names like Imo Eze – names that honored the contributions of Igbo migrants – disappeared overnight, supplanted by Yoruba names. Google Maps, ever compliant, updated its listings in real time, as if digital deletion could make the past vanish. This approach is not novel; it borrows directly from the colonial playbook, when the British renamed Eko as “Lagos” to assert dominance.
Now, APC officials impose their own version of ethnically cleansed toponyms. As reported by Premium Times, these actions “disproportionately favor the dominant ethnic group” and methodically obliterate the legacy of migrants who built much of the city’s vibrancy. The arrogance inherent in the process is breathtaking. There was no consultation, no community input – just the blunt force of state power. Mr. Agu, who had resided on the now-vanished Uzoh Street for forty years, voiced the sense of dispossession: “We were not consulted. This feels like erasure.” His words mirror the bewilderment and anguish of countless others who awoke to find their histories wiped from the map.
While the government busies itself with renaming streets, the actual crises facing Lagosians escalate. Food inflation has soared to 40%, petrol prices have jumped by 124% in a matter of weeks, and police continue to kill protesters demanding an end to bad governance. Amidst this dystopian reality, the spectacle of changing street signs is not just tone-deaf – it amounts to criminal negligence. Citizens like Adeola Babatunde, a mother of four, struggle to put food on the table despite working themselves to exhaustion. “We go home with so little while leaders buy jets,” she laments, her frustration epitomizing a city on the brink.
The government’s priorities are starkly revealed: while children starve, billions of naira fund symbolic gestures doing nothing to resolve the city’s tangible problems. Sowore’s movement links these acts of expungement to a broader strategy of oppression – demolitions, denial of resources to political opponents, and now, the rewriting of the city’s very geography. When a government invests more in controlling memory than in serving its people, it confesses its true motives.
This is not the first instance Nigeria has weaponized place names to silence minorities. The memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni activist hanged in 1995 for resisting ecological destruction alongside cultural erasure, looms large. Today’s renaming campaign resonates with those dark days: ethnic targeting deployed to divert attention from governance failures. Even the colonial masters, for all their brutality, refrained from renaming Yoruba streets with English names under the 1917 Township Ordinance. The current ethno-nationalist endeavor risks re-enacting past tragedies – the massacres of 1967 and 2015 – already foreshadowed by violence erupting in places like Kano and Abuja.
Yet, amid the gloom, resistance flourishes. Sowore’s words – “My alliance is with the oppressed” – capture the ethos of a burgeoning counter-movement. The #EndBadGovernance protests, uniting Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa youths, demonstrate that Lagos’ genius resides in its capacity for shared struggle, not tribal purity. Artists like Oritse Femi, hailing from Delta but raised in Ajegunle, and activists like Sowore refuse to permit the APC’s scribes to redact the city’s DNA. The state’s narrative crumbles under scrutiny, from the Lekki Toll Gate shootings to the vanishing of street signs. The truth, akin to floodwaters in the rainy season, cannot be suppressed indefinitely – it inevitably resurfaces.
Ultimately, this spree of renamings transcends a policy blunder; it constitutes strategic folly of the highest magnitude. It achieves nothing toward fixing potholes, feeding the hungry, or enhancing urban safety. Instead, it offers tribal catharsis for political elites while Lagos teeters on the edge. As Sowore cautions, “We will not watch as Lagos is weaponized for tribal cleansing.” Reversing these changes is insufficient. Lagos demands leaders who construct hospitals and schools, not monuments to their own egos. Until that day arrives, history’s judgment is unequivocal: when a government obliterates the memory of its people, it forfeits its own legitimacy. The streets may bear new names, but the spirit of Lagos – restless, resistant, and resilient – will persist.
Its very nickname, “Eko Akete” (Lagos the Invincible), speaks to a strength derived from diversity, not homogeneity. Contrast this with the myopia of the present renaming crusade. While cities like Dubai leverage hyper-diversity to become global nexuses, while Toronto celebrates its multicultural fabric as core to its brand, Lagos risks signalling a retreat into parochialism. What investor seeks a city where identity politics trump infrastructure?
What global talent flocks to a place where belonging is conditional, where histories are erased on a municipal whim? This inward turn, this obsession with territorial markings and ethnic gatekeeping, doesn’t elevate the Yoruba heritage it purports to protect; it diminishes Lagos itself, reducing its narrative from a grand, cosmopolitan epic to a petty, local squabble. It trades the universal resonance of a city built by many hands for the muffled echo chamber of tribal assertion. The “obscurity” chosen isn’t just cultural; it’s economic, intellectual, and geopolitical. The world moves towards integration; Lagos, in these acts of erasure, risks moving backwards.
When you step back and listen to the mosaic of voices across Lagos, the street renaming controversy reveals itself as far more than a bureaucratic shuffle of signposts; it becomes a deeply personal, at times bruising, negotiation over memory, belonging, and power. Take a drive down the Apapa/Oshodi Expressway, and you’ll hear motorists still calling out “Charly Boy Bus Stop” as if the new “Baddo Bus Stop” simply doesn’t exist. For many, the new designation “only works in principle,” a phrase that captures the stubborn inertia of lived memory and the slow, uneven process by which official decrees trickle down into daily life. This isn’t just nostalgia; it’s a quiet act of defiance, a refusal to relinquish a name that, for decades, stood as a grassroots homage to Charles Oputa’s irreverent activism and the spirit of dissent he embodied.
On the ground, the reactions are as varied as Lagos itself: Kehinde Alani, known locally as Kendoo, dismisses the renaming as “simply politics,” hinting that these shifts are less about honoring heroes and more about consolidating authority. Nnaemeka Okoro, a community leader in Ajegunle, is less measured, branding the replacement of Igbo-named streets a “targeted dismantling of identity” and accusing the council of trying to “Yorubanize” the city’s geography. For him and many others, the new street names are not just words on a map – they signal that certain histories and communities are being pushed to the margins. Charles Oputa himself interprets the move as retaliation for his decades of speaking truth to power, a personal affront cloaked in the rhetoric of urban renewal.
The legal community, too, has weighed in, pointing out that while local governments have statutory authority to rename streets, the Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) do not – a technicality that constitutional experts like Femi Falana argue renders the renamings not merely unpopular but unlawful. This jurisdictional ambiguity injects uncertainty and tension, leaving residents to wonder whether the new names will endure or be overturned in court.
What emerges from these stories is a city confronting three critical fractures: First, a glaring democratic deficit, as the renaming process bypassed public consultation, violating constitutional norms and breeding alienation. Second, inflamed ethnic and cultural tensions, with the disproportionate replacement of Igbo-named streets in districts like Ajeromi-Ifelodun sparking allegations of “cultural erasure.”
In a city celebrated for diversity, these actions risk transforming public space into an arena for tribal conflict, amplifying fears of exclusionary planning. Third, a battle over symbolic authority, where street names – repositories of memory and belonging – shift from grassroots icons like Charly Boy to state-aligned figures like Tinubu, perceived as rewriting history to favor incumbents.
If these fractures persist, Lagos faces imminent legal and social upheaval: Litigation is brewing, with court-ordered reversals threatening the new signposts. Communities resist by clinging to old names in daily speech, while ethnic polarization could worsen if other councils emulate this exclusionary approach. The city may devolve into a quilt of contested spaces, each street name a potential flashpoint.
But reducing this to a local squabble over labels obscures its national resonance. The clash mirrors Nigeria’s struggle with representation, federalism, and cultural equity, forcing urgent questions: Who controls collective memory? Whose legacies endure? Who claims belonging in Lagos’ ever-shifting mosaic?
Zooming in on Charly Boy Bus Stop – now Baddo Bus Stop – exposes these tensions: The original name emerged organically, honoring resistance and dissent; renaming it for rapper Olamide Adedeji, while celebrating contemporary culture, obliterates decades of social memory tied to activism. It’s a zero-sum game between new icons and subversive heritage.
The legal disputes further complicate matters: Femi Falana’s jurisdictional argument underscores that lawful legitimacy is foundational to democracy. When lifelong residents of streets like Uzor (now Kalejaiye Adeboye) describe feeling “erased,” they mourn not just a name but their own disenfranchisement.
Accusations of “Yorubanization” reflect tangible fears that Lagos, once a melting pot, is now an identity battleground where public space is instrumentalized. Top-down renaming signals that some histories are expendable, fueling polarization. Legal backlash – lawsuits, protests – threatens to escalate symbolic friction into an urban identity crisis.
At its core, this asks what Lagos aspires to be: Can it venerate new heroes without negating its past? The renamed streets – Olamide, King Sunny Ade, Bukayo Saka – form a tapestry of cultural vitality. Councils defend the changes as celebrating those who “positively projected the community,” inspiring pride for some.
Yet for others, the upheaval breeds dislocation: Citizens and drivers grapple with unfamiliar names, human rights attorneys decry constitutional breaches, and critics highlight the lopsided removal of Igbo references. Lifelong inhabitants feel adrift and ignored – a testament to the scars of exclusionary governance.
Ultimately, this transcends asphalt and signs; it concerns identity, remembrance, and the right to belong. In hyper-diverse Lagos, few issues carry greater weight. The renaming saga mirrors Nigeria’s wider contests over representation and home. Whether the city emerges united or fractured hinges on whom it memorializes – on maps and in its soul.
Therefore, the lesson for Lagos, and indeed for all who call it home – especially Ndigbo, whose global perspective offers unique insight – is stark. Protecting our distinct identities is vital, but it must never come at the cost of denying our shared humanity and the common project it enables.
The Awori understood that the lagoon’s power came from receiving all waters. Our challenge is to rediscover that wisdom in the social sphere. The erased street names are not just Igbo words; they are human stories of mercy, presence, and resilience. The newly imposed names are also human stories, narratives of faith and lineage. Can Lagos find the courage to hold space for both? To see its streets not as battlegrounds for competing monologues, but as palimpsests for a richer, multi-voiced dialogue?
Kemi Badenoch’s meteoric ascent to the leadership of the UK’s Conservative Party – propelled by her formidable intellect, tireless work ethic, and unapologetic embrace of her Yoruba heritage – is unthinkable in a city like Lagos, where ethnic identity still serves as a gatekeeper for political opportunity, rivaling or even eclipsing merit and competence.
Born Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke to Nigerian parents, Badenoch navigated the labyrinth of British citizenship, cabinet appointments, and fierce leadership contests without ever having her Yoruba roots weaponized against her. In fact, her cultural authenticity became a point of resonance with the British electorate and media, who frequently highlighted her “refreshing candor” and willingness to critique both British and Nigerian governance.
When she openly criticized Nigeria’s governance failures and security lapses, her remarks sparked debate but never threatened her standing or erased her identity from the corridors of power. Her rise – from backbencher to shadow minister to party leader – unfolded with little backlash at home, and certainly no attempt to erase her name or heritage from the plaques and portraits that line the halls of Westminster and the Mansion House.
Contrast this with the current situation in Lagos, where the latest round of street renamings has laid bare a bitter ethnic tug-of-war over public space and collective memory. In neighborhoods like Bariga and Ajeromi-Ifelodun, streets long named for Igbo figures – Imo Eze Street, Emordi Street, Uzor Street – have been abruptly relabeled to honor Yoruba dignitaries and pop culture icons. The iconic Charly Boy Bus Stop, a nod to decades of activism and local history, was transformed into “Baddo” in honor of Olamide, a Yoruba rapper. These changes have not gone unnoticed: residents and community leaders have decried them as a subtle form of “ethnic cleansing through street names,” warning that a city as diverse and cosmopolitan as Lagos risks hardening identity divides with each new signpost. News outlets like Premium Times and The Guardian have reported on the growing backlash, with interviews from affected residents who describe the renamings as “a deliberate attempt to erase our contributions and rewrite the city’s history in one tribe’s image”. On the streets, the resistance is palpable: motorists continue to use the old names, grassroots groups organize petitions, and legal experts question the legitimacy of the process.
In stark contrast, Badenoch’s unapologetic embrace of her Yoruba identity – and her pointed critiques of northern Nigeria, where she once remarked she had “nothing in common” with Boko Haram territory – did not disqualify her from political office in the UK. She has repeatedly asserted that she is “not Nigeria’s PR” and has stood by her comments about insecurity and corruption in her country of birth, even when they have ruffled feathers among diaspora Nigerians and African commentators.
In Britain, these statements sparked robust debate about the accuracy of her citizenship claims and the fairness of Nigeria’s gender-biased nationality laws, but never about her right to a hyphenated identity or her legitimacy as a public figure. There were no calls to strip her of her surname, no campaigns to erase her Yoruba heritage from official records or public honors. Instead, her story was often framed as a testament to the UK’s evolving multiculturalism – a narrative of overcoming barriers, not of being excluded because of them.
In Lagosian politics, however, a non-Yoruba name can be a near-insurmountable barrier to ambition. Local party machines zealously guard “indigene” slots for zoning deals, while grassroots mobilizers and ward leaders funnel resources and support toward candidates who share their lineage. The result is that Ndigbo and other minorities are routinely squeezed out of meaningful positions in municipal councils, often relegated to powerless committees or token appointments. When these communities object, they are met with the familiar refrain: “If you don’t like the way we name our streets, you’re free to relocate” – a not-so-subtle reminder that, in Yorubaland, outsiders serve at the pleasure of the host community. This pattern is not confined to street names; it extends to housing allocations, school admissions, and even access to public contracts, as documented in investigative reports by Nigerian news outlets and corroborated by interviews with local residents.
Badenoch’s experience in the UK is instructive precisely because her “safe diaspora bubble” shielded her from the reprisals and political blockages that a Lagosian outsider would almost certainly face. She could appear on international news outlets like CNN to criticize Nigeria’s police and criminal justice system, secure in the knowledge that her electoral base was rooted in Dulwich and West Norwood, not in any Nigerian constituency.
Any backlash – whether from heritage-proud Nigerians or skeptical British elites – posed no real threat to her seat in Parliament or her future in Westminster. This kind of double-walled immunity is simply unavailable to politicians in Lagos, where even the perception of being an “outsider” can derail a promising career before it begins.
At a deeper level, these contrasting experiences underscore just how central the concept of “indigeneity” remains to Nigerian citizenship and belonging. In Britain, Badenoch’s Yoruba identity augmented her narrative of overcoming adversity and added to her political appeal; in Lagos, similar narratives of marginalization are often weaponized as justification for public resentment and exclusion. When “settlers” or non-indigenes challenge local naming customs or seek higher office, vocal groups like Think Yoruba First and other cultural associations assert that birthright and community sovereignty are non-negotiable. Their message is clear: outsiders must accept the cultural imprint of the host community or leave. This sentiment is echoed in public forums, social media debates, and even in the rhetoric of some elected officials.
Could a Badenoch have emerged in Lagos? Could a fluent Yoruba speaking, non-Yoruba, non-indigene, born and bred in Lagos – no matter how educated, accomplished, or charismatic – realistically ascend to the leadership of a major party or become governor? The prevailing evidence, both anecdotal and statistical, suggests not.
Lagos’s recent spate of name removals and replacements is more than a matter of municipal housekeeping; it is a symptom of a polity that still views shared citizenship as a zero-sum game, where gains for one group are perceived as losses for another. Until the city – and, by extension, the nation – finds a way to disentangle political opportunity from ethnic identity, the story of Kemi Badenoch will remain an outlier, a diasporic exception rather than an attainable model for all Nigerians.
This is not just an abstract concern: it is reflected in the lived experiences of countless Lagosians who, despite their contributions to the city, find themselves perpetually on the outside looking in, their names and histories at risk of being erased with the stroke of a pen or the installation of a new street sign.
The true “Progress” that owns Lagos isn’t a force that erases the past, but one that integrates it, building upon the contributions of all its children. It is the progress born from recognizing that our common struggles against flooding, poverty, poor governance, and the need for dignity bind us far more fundamentally than any tribal demarcation can divide us.
To cling to the obscurantism of exclusion is to fight the tide of human connection that has always been Lagos’ true source of invincibility. To embrace our shared humanity is not to surrender identity, but to fulfill the city’s deepest destiny – to be a beacon not of one people, but of the boundless potential unleashed when many peoples, in all their glorious difference, build a home together. That is the Lagos that endures, that shines, that truly belongs to no one but the future.
Now is the moment to rigorously interrogate what it truly means to be Nigerian, to dissect the idea of “Nigerianness” beyond the surface-level slogans and examine the lived reality beneath the national flag. Nigeria, with a rapidly growing population projected to surpass 238 million by 2026, is a nation of staggering diversity – home to more than 250 distinct ethnonational groups, each with its own language, history, customs, and deeply rooted claims to legitimacy.
This diversity is not merely a demographic fact; it is woven into every aspect of daily life, from the languages spoken in marketplaces to the festivals celebrated in distant villages. The three largest groups – the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo – together account for over 60% of the population, but the remaining hundreds of ethnicities, such as the Ibibio, Tiv, Urhobo, and Ijaw, each maintain vibrant traditions and fiercely guarded identities. In the bustling urban centers and the rural heartlands alike, these identities shape worldviews, alliances, and, crucially, access to opportunity.
Yet, instead of forging a robust and inclusive national identity, this extraordinary plurality has too often become a fault line, a source of tension and fragmentation. The notion of “being Nigerian” is persistently overshadowed by ethnic particularism, where loyalty to kin, clan, or tribe frequently trumps allegiance to the republic. This is not an abstract observation, but a reality that plays out in every sphere of Nigerian life. For instance, during elections, political campaigns routinely appeal to ethnic solidarity, with candidates emphasizing their roots and promising to protect the interests of their “own people.”
In employment, government job advertisements and university admissions often require proof of “state of origin,” effectively privileging indigenes over so-called “settlers,” regardless of merit or contribution. These practices reinforce the perception that citizenship is less about shared values or civic participation, and more about inherited identity – a dynamic that undermines any collective narrative of nationhood and reduces the idea of being Nigerian to a question of who you are, rather than what you believe or what you bring to the table.
The question of governance further complicates this picture. Officially, Nigeria is a federal constitutional democracy, but the lived experience diverges sharply from this ideal. Since the military coup of 1966 and the subsequent suspension of the 1963 Republican Constitution, Nigeria’s political system has been shaped by a patchwork of military decrees, ad hoc amendments, and selective civilian reforms. Scholars and legal experts routinely argue that, despite the trappings of democracy – elections, parliaments, constitutions – Nigeria has never fully embraced genuine constitutionalism or the principle of popular sovereignty. Instead, power is distributed through a complex web of ethnic bargaining, patronage networks, and elite pacts. The president’s cabinet, for instance, is often scrutinized not for competence or vision, but for its ethnic and regional “balance.” Appointments are negotiated among power brokers representing the major groups, and even the allocation of federal resources is filtered through the lens of ethnic entitlement. This hybrid regime masquerades as democracy but often functions more like a “tribalocracy,” where the real currency is not the ballot but the tribe you represent in the corridors of power.
The practical consequences of this system are visible everywhere. In the National Assembly, debates about resource allocation, infrastructure projects, and even the siting of universities are frequently reduced to contests between ethnic delegations, each lobbying for its share of the “national cake.” At the state and local levels, “indigene” certificates determine who can access jobs, scholarships, and political office. Minority groups, such as the Ndigbo in Lagos or the Tiv in the Middle Belt, routinely report being excluded from meaningful participation in local governance, their contributions minimized or erased. The recent street-naming controversies in Lagos, where Igbo-named streets were replaced with Yoruba names, are only the latest example of how public space and political opportunity are rationed by heritage, not by civic contribution or competence. News outlets have documented the sense of alienation among affected communities, with residents describing the changes as “a message that we do not belong here,” and legal experts questioning the constitutionality of such acts.
Politically, Nigeria’s landscape is marked by frenetic activity – endless rallies, defections, and public statements – yet little substantive change. Under the guise of multiparty competition, the ruling party often co-opts opposition figures through inducements or engineered defections, effectively strangling dissent without the need for outright repression. The result is a form of “hyperpolitics” where citizens are reduced to spectators in a winners-take-all game dominated by ethnic brokers and elite negotiators, rather than genuine representatives of the people’s will. This is evident in the way party tickets are allocated, with zoning formulas and “power rotation” agreements taking precedence over open competition or policy debate. In practice, the major parties resemble coalitions of ethnic interests more than vehicles for transformative governance.
By every meaningful indicator – electoral fairness, institutional integrity, civic participation – Nigeria falls short of being a democracy in any robust sense. Power remains allocated along ethnic lines, with “indigene” status determining access to jobs, education, and political office. The result is a confused jumble of separateness, toxic ethnicity, and clannishness that stifles the emergence of a shared civic identity. For minority groups, the message is clear: public goods and opportunities are distributed not on the basis of merit or need, but on the basis of heritage. This is not just a theoretical critique, but a lived reality documented in countless news investigations, court cases, and personal testimonies.
Lagos, for all its cosmopolitan reputation, is not immune to these dynamics. Its geography and historical timing – as colonial capital, federal hub, and commercial crossroads – once made it the country’s melting pot, a place where Nigerians from every background could find opportunity and belonging. Yet, the same fractures that divide the nation at large are now visible in neon signs and lamp-post stickers, in the names of streets and the composition of local councils. The recent street renaming saga, which saw the erasure of Igbo names in favor of Yoruba ones, has sparked protests, petitions, and legal challenges, with affected residents and civil society groups warning that the city risks betraying its inclusive legacy.
Until Nigeria confronts its crisis of identity and makes a decisive transition from tribalocracy to true democracy – one grounded in shared values, equal rights, and genuine civic belonging – the dream of a Kemi Badenoch-style inclusivity in Lagos, or anywhere else in the country, will remain an elusive myth. The path forward demands not just constitutional reform, but a profound cultural shift: one that reimagines what it means to be Nigerian, and builds a nation where every citizen, regardless of origin, can claim full membership in the republic.
Today, Lagos street signs have transcended their utilitarian purpose to become the city’s living nerve endings – pulsating with collective memory, etched with claims to space, and scarred by contests over belonging. The recent wave of renamings has exposed an elemental verity: when change is dictated rather than deliberated, the metropolis doesn’t only lose names; it hemorrhages social cohesion. What began as homage to contemporary icons metastasized into a referendum on ethnic fragility, constitutional integrity, and intergenerational trauma. This demands we reimagine street nomenclature not as administrative fiat, but as civic liturgy – a ritual where every plaque consecrates shared testimony.
Beneath this clash lies a foundational rupture in our contract with governance. Decisions forged in isolation from Ajegunle’s alleyways, Mushin’s markets, or Bariga’s courtyards transform intended tributes into transactional tokens. The raw revelation here is that signpost politics refract deeper malignancies: the distribution of dignity mirrors the allocation of drainage, schools, and clinics. Until communities are co-authors rather than audiences in urban storytelling, each new brass plate will gash the civic psyche – regardless of whose visage it bears.
True repair necessitates neither retraction nor rigidity, but a rearchitected process that braids equity into city-making. Lagos must pioneer an Autonomous Toponymy Council – convening slum-born griots, youth innovators, historians, and representatives of all ethnicities that pulse through its veins. Transitional “heritage signage” displaying old and new names for a defined period would let lived practice – not political pressure – determine permanence. A blockchain-archived registry documenting each toponym’s genesis and evolution could convert municipal records into insurgent poetry, safeguarding against future effacements.
Should Lagos navigate this reckoning, it gifts the world a blueprint for megacities wrestling with identity. By interlacing the legacies of Oputa the dissident, Adebola the market matriarch, Nneka the educator, and Sanwo-Olu the administrator, Eko could metamorphose renaming from territorial conquest into collaborative cartography. Every intersection would then breathe as a palimpsest – simultaneously honoring ancestral struggles and inscribing emergent dreams.
The compass points toward radical inclusion: embedding community consent into policy DNA, harnessing plurality as infrastructure, and ensuring no Lagosian walks streets where their narrative feels invisible. To honor Awori legacy requires more than folklore festivals; it demands institutionalizing inclusion through land courts of reconciliation that restore Idejo-style councils with statutory powers to resolve disputes, piloting in Ajegunle and elsewhere across Lagos, where Yoruba landowners, Igbo traders, and IDPs jointly redesign flooded streets.
It requires heritage hybrid naming that rejects Yoruba-only renamings, installing dual-language signs: “Imo Eze / Oluwa Layiwola Street,” with QR codes linking to oral histories of Igbo dredgers who reclaimed the swamp. It demands IDP urban integration by issuing Lagos residency cards to camp dwellers, granting access to vocational training, replicating Mary’s akara collective in all 18 shack communities – not as charity, but as micro-utilities of mutual aid.
The lagoons that birthed Lagos now hold a mirror to its soul: where waters meet, they create estuaries of unparalleled fertility. The Awori knew this – that embracing tributaries doesn’t dilute the source; it transforms it into an ocean. Today’s territorial markings – whether on street signs or land deeds – are not strength, but the tremors of a city forgetting its deepest wisdom. As the Atlantic gnaws at its shores, Lagos must choose: build higher walls, or become water again.
Finally, I ask. “Whose Lagos?”
And my answer is: “Those who pour sweat into its soil, regardless of ancestry, inscribe their right to its names”!
