The claim that Lagos is a “no man’s land” is a controversial and contested topic. Lagos, a city located in southwestern Nigeria, started out as a fishing village, called Eko. Its inhabitants and settlers were the Yoruba people. Over time, the area grew and attracted traders from neighboring regions, including the Binis who conquered the area in the 16th century, and European explorers, leading to the establishment of a thriving port city.

The phrase, Lagos is a “no man’s land” was first used by the First Speaker of the House of Representatives and later Minister for Foreign Affairs, Honorable Jaja Anucha Nwachukwu, in 1947.

Hon. Nwachukwu used the term to describe Lagos as the Federal Capital of Nigeria. Then, and now, he was wrong, as Lagos State was not Nigeria’s capital, but a small part of Lagos was.

Until 1976 when the Justice Akinola Aguda Committee recommended the movement of Nigeria’s capital to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital was the land between Fadeyi and Victoria Island.

Other parts of Lagos and other lands in the entire Yorubaland were officially listed as Western Region.

Even at that, it must be remembered that the areas covered and named the ‘Federal Capital’, and the entire Lagos Island belongs to the Aromire family while Apapa belongs to the Oluwa family. Lagos Mainland belongs to the Oloto family while Tomaro to Onisiwo. Victoria Island belongs to the Oniru family while the Elegushi family owns Ikate. The whole of Ijora and Ajegunle belongs to the Ojora family. There was no part of Lagos that was an empty and ungoverned wasteland as the definition and the idea of a “no man’s land” connotes. To call Lagos “a no man’s land” then and now, as I noted in my earlier response, is ahistorical, insensitive, and irresponsible.

Hon. Nwachukwu’s use of “no man’s land”, which applied only to the Federal Capital, gained traction in 1947 and was used essentially to denote the fact that due to a small section or part of Lagos being a Federal Capital, Lagos – whether as a whole or in part, belongs to nobody, but all Nigerians. As I already noted, this is not only wrong, but also ahistorical, insensitive, and irresponsible.

Lagos evolved over the years as a melting pot but that cannot and should not erase its history as Yorubaland and the small part that was Nigeria’s capital was not an empty, ungoverned wasteland.

Since Hon. Nwachukwu’s description of Lagos as a “no man’s land”, Igbos in Lagos have used the description to promote the idea that Lagos does not belong to any ethnic group or culture, and therefore, anyone can claim ownership of the city. Sadly, as we have been told, when the 33 years old Odumegwu Ojukwu dragged the country into an avoidable Civil War, the Igbos knew their homelands and fled there.

Asking me to give you figures of how many Igbos share in the idea is a classic act of playing to the gallery, a game I am not good at.

For the avoidance of doubt, Lagos has always been home to the Yoruba, and they have a rightful claim to the land.

The Bini conquest of the 16th century, to borrow from late Ade-Ajayi, is a phase, a chapter in the long continuum that was and still is a Lagos and Yoruba history.

If you desire to know the proportion of Igbos who shared in the view, you are at liberty to conduct a field survey.