Sunday, January 24, 2010

Eko Pride and Culture Week. Oba Adeniji Adele II








Photos from Adeniji-Adele Descendants FB group.

Eko Pride and Culture Week.Royal And Traditional Praramouncy. List of Past and Present Oba Of Lagos.









* Ashipa (1600-1630)
* King Ado (1630-1669)
* King Gabaro (1669-1704)
* King Akinsemoyin (1704-1749)
* Eletu Kekere (1749)
* King Ologun Kutere (1749-1775)
* Adele Ajosun (1775-1780 & 1832-1834)
* Eshilokun (1780-1819)
* Oba Idewu Ojulari (1819-1832)
* King Oluwole (1836-1841)
* King Akintoye (1841-1845 & 1851-1853)
* Oba Kosoko (1845-1851)
* King Dosunmu(1853-1885)
* Oba Oyekan (1885-1900)
* Oba Esugbayi Eleko (1901-1925 & 1932)
* Oba Ibikunle Akitoye (1925-1928)
* Oba Sanusi Olusi (1928-1931)
* Oba Falolu (1932-1949)
* Oba Adeniji Adele (1949-1964)
* Oba Adeyinka Oyekan II (1965-2003)
* Oba Rilwan Akiolu (2003-present)

Eko Pride and Culture Week. Past Governors Of Lagos State.



Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson . 1967 - 1975 (military)

Commodore Adekunle Lawal. 1975 - 1977 (military)

Commodore Ndubusi Kanu 1977 -1978 (military)

Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe 1978 - 1979 (military)

Alhaji Lateef Jakande 1979 -1983

Air Commodore Gbolahan Mudasiru 1984-1986 (military)

Navy Captain Mike Akhigbe 1986 -1988 (military)

Brigadier General Raji Rasaki 1988-1991 (military)

Sir Michael Otedola 1991 -1993

Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola 1993-1996(military)

Colonel Mohammed Buba Marwa 1996 -1999 (military)

Mr Bola Tinubu Governor 1999 - 2007

Mr Babatunde Fashola 2007-present

Eko Pride and Culture Week. Economy.


(est. pop. 18,000,000)

Lagos is Nigeria's largest city, its administrative and economic center, and its chief port. Industries include railroad repair, motor vehicle assembly, food processing, and the manufacture of metal products, textiles, beverages, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, soap, and furniture. The city is a road and rail terminus and has an international airport. An old Yoruba town, Lagos, beginning in the 15th cent., grew as a trade center and seaport. From the 1820s until it became a British colony

Like most capital cities of the world, Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria is known worldwide for its bustling business activities. It is Nigeria's largest city, chief port and economic and cultural centre. Apapa is the chief port district, on the mainland. With an area of approximately 43 square kilometers, Lagos comprises several islands and the adjacent mainland areas. Notable among the places on the Island are Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Isale-Eko; the Mainland is made up of Ebute-Metta, Yaba, Surulere, Apapa, Ikeja and Agege among others. The State can boast of probably one of the best International airports in the country, which is located in Ikeja, the capital of the State. Ikeja and its environs take the lion share in the location of industries, but Lagos Island has the highest concentration of retail/commercial outlets and bureaucracy. There is a Federal Secretariat, located in Ikoyi on Lagos Island and the commercial nerve centre of Lagos is Broad Street, close to the Marina. There are also two seaports - Apapa Port and Tin Can Island Port, both in Apapa while the Iddo terminus belongs to the Railway Corporation.

Lagos is the commercial and industrial hub of Nigeria, with a GNP that triples that of any other West African country. Lagos has greatly benefited from Nigeria's natural resources in oil, natural gas, coal, fuel wood and water. Light industry was prevalent in post-independence Nigeria and petroleum-related industry dominated in the 1970's, directly affecting the rapid growth of Lagos.
Oil production, which began in the 1950's, increased seven-fold between 1965 and 1973, while world oil prices skyrocketed. By 1978, the metropolitan area accounted for 40% of the external trade of Nigeria and was home to at least 40% of the national skilled population. The global recession of 1981, which precipitated a sharp fall in oil prices, sent Lagos reeling into debt and runaway inflation that persisted for a more than a decade but has recently declined. As a result, a massive programme of infrastructure and social services expansion came to an abrupt halt.
Lagos: it takes an average of two to three hours to travel 10-20 kilometres. A high-speed, elevated metro-liner is in the planning stages.
Since 1985, state urban renewal plans have concentrated on upgrading the environment of slum communities by building roads and drainage channels and providing water supply, electricity, schools and health clinics. With cooperation from the citizens, success has been recorded in a number of pilot urban renewal schemes, which focus on building roads and drainage channels and providing water supply, electricity, schools and health clinics.

Lagos is Nigeria’s financial, commercial and industrial nerve centre with over 2,000 manufacturing industries and over 200 financial institutions (Banks, Insurance companies etc) including the nation’s premier stock exchange, the Nigeria Stock Exchange.

It also houses the nation’s monetary authority, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The State alone harbours 60% of the Federation’s total industrial investments and foreign trade while also attracting 65% of Nigeria’s commercial activities. It also accounts for more than 40% of all labour emoluments paid in the country.

Indeed, the headquarters of multinational conglomerates like UAC, Unilever, John Holts, BEWAC/VYB, Leventis, Churchgate, Chevron, Shell, Exxonmobil and the nation’s giant public enterprises are all located within the State.

However, Lagos State is not industrially saturated. There exists a vast potential of underdeveloped land in the Eti-Osa Area of Lagos, Badagry, Epe, Ikeja and Ikorodu Divisions.

In a bid to decongest the Ikeja and Lagos Industrial Estates and thus open up other areas for development, the State Governement has provided small scale industrial estates in all of the State’s 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Development Councils




http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:78CDFGy6SE0J:https://apps.atlantaga.gov/sister/lagos/nigeria/lagos.html+lagos+state+histrory&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Eko Pride and Culture Week. Lagos as a state via Decree No. 14



Lagos State came into existence on May 27, 1967 through Decree No. 14 promulgated by the Federal Military Government. Major Mobolaji Johnson (now Brig. Gen. RTD) was posted to assume the position of the Military Governor of the State.

With the creation of Lagos State, the Governor's Office was established and an official working unit was created to assist the Military Administrator in the discharge of his duties.

This team comprised the Military Administrator in the person of Major Mobolaji Johnson and four officers namely: Mr. A. E. Howson-Wright, then Permanent Secretary of Internal Affairs and chairman of the Caretaker Committee for the City of Lagos, Mr. F.C.O. Coker, a brilliant economist and Chartered Accountant, Mr. I. O. Agoro, a Legal Officer seconed from the Federal Ministry of Justice and Mr. J. O. Adeyemi-Bero, an Administrative Officer who was the Secretary of the working unit.

Since the creation of the Lagos State Governor's Office, it has undergone series of transformation in structure and nomenclature for effective and efficient administration of the State Government. It was once referred to as Political and General Administration Department, Military Governor's Office, until June 1999 when it was change to the Office of the Chief of Staff (Governor's Office).

Eko Pride and Culture Week. Our History.



















Lagos rests on the Gulf of Guinea.


The original settlers of Lagos, or Eko as it is called by the indigenous population, were of Benin and Awori Eko heritage. The city was founded in the fifteenth century as a Portuguese trading post exporting ivory, peppers, and slaves. It subsequently fell into the hands of the British, who began exporting food crops after outlawing slavery in 1807.

Lagos was settled at various times by hunters and fishermen from the Àwórì sub-nationality. Originally based in Iseri on the Ògùn River about 20 miles from the island, the initial wave of settlers led by Arómiré ("the one that becomes personable at the sight of a river"), established a presence in Ìddó and Èbúté Métta. Arómiré also grew vegetables, especially pepper, on a site where Iga Ìdúngànràn, the palace or official residence of the Oba of Lagos now stands. Iga Ìdúngànràn is an Àwórì term meaning house on pepper farm. The palace is thus not only an important symbol of the historical traditions of Lagos; its name also helps keep alive the site's association with vegetable farming by Arómiré, the city's first settler.

From these bases the Àwórì settlers moved further south, towards the creeks and the sea. One major reason why they moved was because their increasing population created the need for more space. Another was safety and security. Yorùbáland, of which Lagos was a part, had become embroiled in the long-running wars involving ethnic groups, communities, chiefdoms, kingdoms, and other political units of the time. The island settlements faced war from the Ègbás and the Ìjèbús, both Yorùbá-speaking nationalities. The ancient Benin Empire, in present-day Edo State of Nigeria also invaded the island around the year 1600.

There are conflicting accounts of the latter episode. Some have argued that the Binis actually founded the Lagos monarchy or system of rulership, apparently in the image of Benin's. Ashipa, the first Oba of Lagos, was a Yorùbá chief but not a Lagosian. It is known also that between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Benin Empire extended as far as Porto-Novo, west of Lagos. The Oba of Benin did appoint viceroys or representatives on the island and approved all appointees to the office of Oba of Lagos. In return, Lagos Obas paid tribute to Oba of Benin in recognition of the latter's superior status. Other historians have insisted that the Oba of Benin waged war on the island for the same reasons wars were then prevalent.

One of these was the desire by reigning monarchs to expand control over weaker, less populous peoples or neighboring communities, kingdoms, and empires. Another reason concerned the new trans-Atlantic slave trade. For those who participated in the trade as middlemen, warfare did provide a quick and sure supply of war captives who could then be sold as slaves and shipped to the New World. By an estimate, some 500,000 people may have been sold as indentured slaves and shipped from Lagos to the Americas and the Caribbean, in particular Bahia, Cuba, and St. Helena. Anyway, for Arómiré and early settlers of the island, moving further south away from the mainland towards the sea was a mechanism to escape the wars that ravaged Yorùbáland from the seventeenth century. The wars and the disruptions associated with them were to become a justification for imposing British colonial control first on the island and later on what is now Nigeria.

From the mid-nineteenth century, freed Yorùbá slaves started returning to Lagos in waves first from Brazil and then from Sierra Leone. In 1847, Oba Kòsókó of Lagos sent his close friend and adviser Chief Oshòdì Tápà to South America to invite slaves with Yorùbá ancestry to return home. The trip yielded results in 1851 when 130 expatriates arrived in Lagos. By 1861 when Lagos formally became a British colony, the number of returnees had risen to about 3,000. The Brazilian expatriates brought with them skills in masonry, carpentry, and tailoring, a strong Catholic faith, and extensive Portuguese cultural traits.

Sierra Leonean expatriates, or Saros, mainly of Ègbá origins in present-day Abéòkúta in Ògùn State of Nigeria, started returning to Lagos in trickles about 1838. The reigning Oba Kòsókó did very little to make them feel welcome, so it was not until 1852 after Oba Kòsókó had been deposed by the British and replaced by Oba Akíntóyè, that Saros returned to Lagos in large numbers. They numbered about 2,500 by 1861 and were granted land in a district on the island still known as Saro Town.
With their longer association with English missionaries, Sierra Leonean returnees appeared to enjoy higher standards of material comfort than Lagos indigenes. The Saros were devout Protestants and better educated in the formal sense too. These attributes were to stand them in good stead to play a leading role in the cultural life of Lagos; they also helped infuse their fatherland with a love of education. Their efforts were to help create a class of literate indigenes who led the fight for human dignity under British colonial rule and set the stage for the nationalist struggle that led to Nigeria's independence in 1960.

These main groups have since been joined by a more heterogeneous mix of immigrants from far and near. The Vaughan family has American ancestry while the Bickersteth family originated from Porto-Novo in present-day Benin Republic. Lagos is also home to people with Ghanaian ancestry. A much larger number have moved south over the years from other parts of Nigeria—for example, from the Nupe and Benin areas in addition to Yorùbá migrants, especially from Ìjèbú, Ègbá, and Badagry areas.

Colonial Lagos.

Lagos, beginning in the 15th cent., grew as a trade center and seaport. From the 1820s until it became a British colony, Lagos was a notorious center of the slave trade. Britain annexed the city in 1861, both to tap the trade in palm products and other goods with the interior and to suppress the slave trade. In 1906, Lagos was joined with the British protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and, in 1914, when Southern and Northern Nigeria were amalgamated, it became part of the small coastal Colony of Nigeria. In 1954 most of the colony was merged with the rest of Nigeria, but Lagos was made a separate federal territory. From the late 19th century to independence in 1960, Lagos was the center of the Nigerian nationalist movement. From independence until 1991, Lagos was the capital of Nigeria.

King Sunny Ade BLESSING: Clean Lagos




Beautiful song indeed.

Keep Lagos Clean.

Eko o ni baje lai lai.

O baje ti.

God bless the great state of Lagos.