The Federal Government did not build Lagos,Yoruba did

The Federal Government did not build Lagos, Yoruba did

By O’seun Ogunseitan

Again please stop misleading our youths. There is no basis for any competition for ownership of any parts here. The Nigerian federal government did not build Lagos. The islands of Lagos, which are part of today’s Lagos State, was the Colony of Lagos held by the British. Eighty percent of today’s Lagos State belonged to the Western Region which developed the parts like Ikeja and Ilupeju, before they were merged with the Colony, to create Lagos State.

Lagos had two ports at least 300 years before the Lagos Harbour was built to create the Apapa Port. The old Ports were profitable for businesses between Yorubas and non-British West Europeans. The Britons were later comets here. The Ports of Lagos had always handled more exports than all Nigerian Ports put together, even before independence.

Chief Louis Ojukwu, Dim Ojukwu’s father, did not build the Apapa Port and was not an investor during the building of the Apapa Port as is now being peddled. The Apapa Port was built between 1908 and 1912 several decades before Ojukwu’s father stepped foot on the soils of Western Nigeria. Ojukwu’s father was born in 1909. He made his money as an inter-state goods and transport business owner, not as a Lagos-based industrialist.

Lazy public policy particularly by successive federal government’s and their officials who fail to add value to what exists or create new value where there is none, are some of the reasons why the Lagos Port is today still the busiest Port in Nigeria. Yorubas were not involved in the federal governments running Nigeria before and after independence and could not have designed any policies to favour any located in Yorubaland.