NIGERIA: A cemetery of dreams

How the military, dog bite shattered Banana Island founder, Adebayo’s dream

Another painful story of how the years of military rule stunted growth and development in Yorubaland

By Samuel Ogunsona and Ologeh Joseph

A United States of America Naval personnel, Remi Adeleke has narrated how the dream of his father to build the Lagos Banana Island into a World Class resort was stolen from him at gun point by the Nigerian Military Government.

The late Chief Adebayo Adeleke had invested millions of dollars on the project but the Nigerian Military Government took it away and messed up his iconic dream.

The centre he had hoped to build was to be a replica of the World Trade Centre and the Wall Street right in Lagos on Yoruba territory. But again, Nigeria killed that great dream.

Legal efforts to retrieve the land back brought him back to Nigeria. A dog bite from a neigbour followed by poor medicare finally sealed his dreams. He died. Chief Adebayo was the first black man that became a board member of the World Trade Centre and was one of the architects that built the centre in New York City.

A retired Permanent Secretary who does not wish to be name told Irohinoodua that the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo fought hard on behalf of the late Adebayo but the the military governments of former Heads of State, Mohammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida were adamant

Narrating the ordeal of his father, his son who is a Naval officer in the United States said his father conceived the current Banana Island which was then named Lagoon Project before the Federal Government took the land away even after he had invested millions of dollars underscoring the high risk of doing business in Nigeria.

In an interview received by Irohinoodua he narrated how his father, Late Chief Adebayo Adeleke, died and was unable to complete his Banana Island vision.

Late Chief Adebayo Adeleke was an Architect and also the brain behind “Banana Island” now located in Ikoyi, Lagos.

In the interview with PR podcast, Remi Adeleke his sone said his father before he died was a multimillionaire, philanthropist and visionary who got scholarship to study Architecture Engineering in London in his late teens.

He said, “My dad, he was a genius. He was a visionary, entrepreneur, philanthropist, multi millionaire. You name it..He did it. He was born in Nigeria, left in his late teens, ended up getting a full ride academic scholarship to study Architecture Engineering in London. He got his Bachelor’s, got his Master’s, started accumulating his wealth in the West. He was one of the first black men on the board of the World Trade Center in New York City”.

“He was the first black man on the board of the British Financial Planning Council in the UK. I mean he was a genius. After a number of years and after accumulating all of his wealth in the West, he decided he go back to Nigeria because of Nigeria’s rich resources. You got oil, you got natural gas, you got cocoa, you got gold, you got minerals. As a matter of fact, you got China going into parts of Africa, not just Nigeria but other parts of Africa as well and you know and buying up land and doing deals with the Nigerian government or property owners and to mine these areas for natural resources and so my dad knowing how rich Nigeria was in resources came home.

He said further “You know he wanted to create like a Nigerian Wall Street, like an African Wall Street, a financial sector that people from around the world could come to and do business in Africa. In the 1970s, he bought a massive plot of land called Maroko. It still exists to this day and that was where he was to build his Wall Street. He bought it for 8 million pounds in the 1970s. That’s a lot of money and so that was where he wanted to build this Wall Street essentially. And there was a military coup, somewhere around the 70s, 80s. I can’t remember but let me say in the late 70s and that Maroko was taken from him,” he added.

He said Adebayo who could not fight against the military leadership waited for the coup to subside before taking the Federal government to court.

“He went to court with the Nigerian government. He fought them. After the coup subsided, he wasn’t going to fight against the military regime. So after the coup has subsided, he went forward to meet the Nigerian government. In the court system, the Federal Government said to him, “Alright, what do you want for compensation? We are not going to give you Maroko back. What do you want? Do you want the money back? What is it that you want?”

“In the settlement, my dad requested for the Lagos Lagoon. It was literally a swamp but he requested for the Lagos Lagoon and then the Nigerian government was like “what are you gonna do with the Lagoon?”

He told them”don’t worry about. Just give me the Lagoon”.

Speaking further he said “And so what he did was that he hired Dutch Engineers to dredge the Lagoos, create six inter links and essentially create one of the first man made islands in Nigeria which still exist to this day. It is now known as “Banana Island”. But when he started dredging and creating the Island, that was when I was born.”

“So I was born in 1982 and I was born into riches and wealth. We had nannies, cars, drivers, I mean you name it. We travelled all over the world, my dad was a multi millionaire. So that’s the life I was born into. Fast forward, after the land had formed and he started construction on the buildings, the Lagos state government, not the federal government but the Lagos State military government came in and said “the Federal Government was never supposed to award him the Lagoon”.

“They said that the lagoon belonged to the State but Nigeria is a very corrupt nation. Historically being one of the most corrupt countries for the last 40, 50 decades and they conveniently waited until the land had formed and until construction started, building started to come in and say “that belonged to us”. They essentially took it from my dad”.

“My mum would tell my dad all the time “listen, you need to put money back in the United states because I don’t trust the Nigerian System and what happened in the 70s happened again. We lost everything because my dad leveraged everything. All his art, our house, millions of dollars and he would tell my mum “listen, my priority is Nigeria. Let me get this whole thing set up so that Nigeria can be a better place and once it’s all set up and we are getting paid rent, then we will put all the millions of dollars in the US but this is my priority because he was trying to do something for the people. It was not about him doing it for himself. He would make make money but it was about him doing something for Nigeria.”

“As a matter of fact, the sane architect of the Work Trade Center was a good friend of his. He and the architect created the blueprints for the Twin Towers that were supposed to stand at the center of the Lagoon city in Lagos whose name was changed to Banana Island right now because my father wanted to do something for the people anyway. All I have to say, he went to court to go fight the Nigeria government. He he died three later,” he said

He said Chief Adeleke died of bad medication after he was bitten by a dog.

“A lot more to the story on my book of transformation. I break it down but the autopsy showed that he was given bad medication. He was bitten by a dog. He went for a walk, super stressed out in Nigeria and a dog in the neigbour ‘s next to us broke free. My dad did walks all the times, it never happened. The dog broke free, slid through the gate, bit him and he died.”