STILL ON THE HISTORY OF LAGOS---------------------------------------------

STILL ON THE HISTORY OF LAGO

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Olusola Nehemiah Ebiseni:

Akure, Ondo State.

I am both Ilaje and can significantly lay claim to being Awori. I learnt and lived the history of these two great Yoruba coastal dwellers who, from time immemorial, dominated the Atlantic corridor from the estuary of the Benin River in the south eastern boundary with Itsekiri and the junction of the Kokotoro and Adabrasa creeks which is Ilaje's north eastern boundary with the Ijaw and Bini. The Ilaje territory extends thence along the coast westwards mingling with the Awori and later Egun for over 300 kilometres almost to Port Novo horizontally and having as northern neighbours, the Ikale, Egba, Egbado and Ijebu. The push by the Eguns in the various Yoruba wars with the Dahomey towards the end of the 18th and larger part of the 19th century accounts for the conquest and occupation of a large part of Awori land in Ado-Odo areas of Soki, Ere, Ikoga, Bandu, Obakobe and other Awori towns of Apa, Sigi, Erekiti, Omfo, Ikoga, Mowo, Ibereko etc. 

The Bini military mercenary forays into this territory dated back to around the 15th century when Oba Oroghua led military expedition through Ilaje to Lagos. According to Oba Erediuwa, the immediate past and intellectually resourceful Benin monarch, in a lecture he delivered at the University of Ibadan in 1974 and which essentially formed part of his book and memoirs, Oba Oroghua met stiffest opposition by the Ilaje  Mahin kingdom, which was so organised and civilised that it was there the Benin, according to Oroghua, first tasted rock salt, which they did not only savour but took home and celebrates till today in Benin songs and folklore. As expected, Erediuwa claimed Oroghua defeated Mahin, the truth, however, was that only a rag tag remnant of the Benin army escaped with Oroghua through Langbasa to Lagos Island. The unsavoury military encounter with Mahin prevented Oroghua from going back to Benin through the coast, he elected instead, a tortious journey through the Akure and Ado countries. The attempt by Oba Akengbuda, the successor of Oroghua, with the support of Itsekiri mercenaries, to attack Ilaje territory again was fatal as he and his army met their Waterloo by the army at Eluju-Ibila where the Benin were utterly defeated ending Benin's ambitious expedition. The Benin/Ilaje relationship was also of mutual respect as another Benin account has it that, at a time, the Benin heirs apparent were groomed at the court of the Olugbo of Ugbo, a Yoruba kingdom of aboriginal existence. According to Samuel Johnson in his book History of the Yoruba, pages 465-467, another group which tested the Ilaje military might was the Ijebu Epe which waged war on Mahin over the control of the Lagos lagoon. The Epes were defeated and surrendered to the Ilaje  superior naval military prowess in the aftermath of which the lagoon was closed and movement from other parts of Nigeria to Lagos was disturbed because Atijere, an Ilaje town, was the gateway to other parts of Nigeria to and from Lagos. Thus, the message of the Alaafin of Oyo to the Governor of Lagos requesting intervention to end the Yoruba internecine wars was delayed, first at Ondo and later at Ayesan for a total of 20 days before it could get to Lagos. The remaining of the Epe warriors were detained at Ilaje town of Itebu Manuwa for 3 months. It took the intervention of the Governor himself to end this war ( which began  late 1881), in January 1882. It is preposterous and illogical to suggest that Benin, on a military mission, founded Lagos. It is a different thing to say it had a territorial mission to conquer and subdue existing settlement and kingdom, yet the vast Ilaje territory was the impediment and albatross to the ambitious Bini empire which had neither the military strength nor population for conquest, for the purpose of permanent occupation or imposition of any enduring culture over such a large territory and long distance from base. From the beginning, rulership of the Lagos Island was not of any significance as no kingdom or empire was created thereat not even by the much vaunted Ado from Bini. Rather, it was a rulership haphazardly based on survival of the fittest of the Yoruba groups. The ascendancy of Oba Akinsemoyin of Ilaje ancestry began an organized monarchical order. Subsequent Obas are of a mixture of Awori, Ilaje and of curious, non residential Ijesha blood. The Portuguese and the African returnees after the abolition of slave trade joined the existing   groups to make Lagos what it now is. Among the two indigenous tribes of Awori and Ilaje, while the Awori families particularly through the Idejo chiefs were focused on acquisition of land, the Ilaje families, except for a few ones, were more concerned with developing settlements which they often abandoned and moved on in pursuits of fishing and coastal trading. The naming and pattern of settlements in Lagos put beyond reasonable doubts that while the Ilaje has greater indigenous population followed by the Awori in the coastal areas including all of the Lekki Peninsula, mixed with Egun and Aganyin later settlers, the Awori and Ilaje also occupy the territories around the creeks of Apapa, Ajegunle, Makoko, Iwaya, Bariga, Oko Baba, Oto, Ebute-Metta, Oyingbo, Ijora, Igbo Elejo, Ojo, Ajah, Iton Agan, Oworonsoki, Agboyi, Bayeku etc. In the east of Lagos, Ilaje shares indigenous existence with the dominant Ijebu groups in the Epe and Ikorodu divisions in Majidun, Ijede, Owode, Ajegunle, Agbowa, etc. In the Egun/Awori area of the old Badagry Division, there are established Ilaje indigenous settlements amidst dominant Egun and Awori areas in Ojo, Apa,  Erekiti, Ajara, Topo etc. Some popular communities in Lagos such as  Obun Eko, Idunmagbo, Majidon, Igbo Osere are obvious Ilaje names. Igbo Osere, for instance, is named after the predominant 'osere' trees in that forest for the carving of canoes, the occupation of my biological father. Significantly, there is another Ilaje Igbosere settlement between Araromi in Ondo state and Ise in Lagos state. Evidently, in none of these areas do you find any community traceable to Benin establishment.   At the inception of British colonial rule, Ilaje was part of the Lagos colony sharing the same administration with Epe. By the Act of the Legislative Council of the 12th November 1895, signed by George C Denton Acting Governor and pursuant to Ordinance No.5 of 1890, Ilaje territory earlier described up to the estuary of the Benin River in the east and the junction of the Kokotoro and Adabrassa creeks (consequently named 'Lagos Junction'), effectively become part of Lagos Colony.

Ilaje was only excised from Lagos and joined with the others to create the Ondo Province in 1915 after the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1915 forming the present Ondo and Ekiti states.

The aboriginal evidence of Ilaje settlement is so incontrovertible that the present Governor of Lagos state, Akinwunmi Ambode of Ilaje ancestry is unarguably, the most indigenous of the Governors to have ever ruled Lagos. Of all the indigenous tribes of Lagos state - Awori, Ilaje, Ijebu and Egun, Ilaje is the singular most ubiquitous group found significantly in all Lagos administrative territorial divisions and spreading even to the Ogun state Awori towns of Ado-Odo where I was born and spent a great part of my childhood and also along the Yewa River up to Isalu, Ijako, Isagbo, Owo and Ajilete on the Lagos-Idiroko Benin Republic border.