The Lagos State Police Command has warned owners of abandoned vehicles parked at Badagry and Ogudu Police Stations to remove them or lose them to members of the public through auction 21 days after the publication.
They are Volkswagen Gulf SL432AAA, Nissan Sunny BB753AKD and Faragon bus XD359KRD
BADAGRY remained in the news yesterday as the police continued what they called the demolition of illegal structures.
To salvage their properties, some landlords pulled down their homes before the bulldozers got there.
It was sorrow never experienced by residents of the Atinporome community in Mowo-Badagry, Lagos. Tears flowed freely as the bulldozers later levelled their homes.
The development, police said on Monday, arose from residents’ alleged encroachment on the land which they claimed, was acquired for the purpose of erecting an estate for their officers.
Policemen from OP MESA, an arm of the Lagos State Police Command, were deployed to forestall resistance. About three police vans were stationed at strategic locations.
A victim, Benneth Oyakhilome, told The Nation: “They (policemen) came on Monday at about 4am with 20 Hilux vans loaded with armed policemen and six Black Maria vehicles. They began demolition immediately without allowing us to rescue anything. The demolition lasted till about 6pm and resumed early today (Tuesday).”
There were heaps of personal effects at various locations in the community. A resident who pleaded for anonymity said: “When the news reached Tony (a hotel owner) that the police were already pulling down his new hotel, the man rushed down here. When he arrived, the hotel was already destroyed halfway. Curiously, the man just burst into uncontrollable laughter. He then ordered for beer which he drank until he passed out and was rushed to a nearby hospital. We learnt that Tony is dead, but we are yet to confirm it.”
One of the three bulldozers had already broken down, while the others continued to mow down the buildings one after the other.
Meanwhile, the embattled residents have urged government to compel the police to produce evidence that the land was sold to them.
It was learnt that when the threats of demolition by the police began in 2009, the residents sought help through the court and in 2011, they were granted an injunction over the land. To them, the Monday incident was a surprise.
The community’s traditional ruler, Chief Joshua Medepo, appealed for government’s intervention, adding that neither he nor his forefathers had any document showing that the land was sold to the police. He wondered why the police should resort to such action when the matter is still in court.
He said the notice which was sent to him by the police specified Agemowo/Agelado communities as the demolition points and not Atinporome.
A letter dated December 14, 2013 was addressed to Chief Medepo. It was titled: Encroachment on police land located at Agemowo/Agelado Mowo via Badagry. The letter was signed by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Admin) for the Commissioner of Police Lagos State Command, Ikeja.
Medepo said: “Government should help us find out who sold the land to it. I became Baale three years ago, but I never heard anything like that. In 2009, these people came laying claim to this land; we went to court. Our lawyer and theirs were represented. In 2011, the court gave injunction, ordering them to stop the survey which they had started then. Later, they came with bulldozers, but we chased them away and we did not see them until now. We protested to the Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja and met with the governor and one of his aides claimed to be unaware of the police action.”
“It was strange because we received no notice of the demolition although there had been a land ownership tussle. I was invited by Area K Command on Saturday with a notice that police are coming for demolition here. The letter given to that effect bore the name of two other communities – Agemowo and Agelado – which are on the opposite side of the expressway and not Atinporome.”
Chairman of the Community Development Association (CDA), Mr Adu Charles, claimed that the police bought the land from Afemowo and Agelado, and not Atinporome. He said “because they discovered that that place was swampy, they shifted to a dry land here, not minding that the people who bought land were already occupying it.” He corroborated the Baale on the notice, adding: “We went to the Urban and Rural Development office, the Secretariat, Alausa, where the commissioner denied knowledge of the letter. We also went to the Task Office in Ikeja, which also denounced the letter.’
Even the Shoko ancestors rejoiced with the living, as electricity was switched on by Commissioner for Rural Development Mr. Cornelius Ojelabi, for the Badagry rural community last Tuesday.
Represented by two Sangbeto masquerades, (one decked in raffia and the other in polyester material); the ancestors danced and danced, gyrating to drumbeats that evoke their awesome divinity, trumping the ground, as their spirit joined the living in praising the government for bringing modernity closer home.
For decades, the Shoko people, in Badagry West Local Government Area of Lagos State had bore in silence the pain of using bush lamps at night. Though the community was a shouting distance from Kankon, where the state government sited one of its model secondary schools, it was shorn of all basic social amenities.
But that has changed. Handing over the project to the people, in the presence of other notable personalities among who were the Special Adviser to the Governor on Rural Development, Mr. Babatunde Hunpe, the Secretary to Badagry West Local Government Mr. Abraham Mautin and the Chairman Community Development Advisory Council (CDAC), Prince Gabriel Awomodu, the Commissioner for Rural Development described the electrification as “a demonstration of Governor Babatunde Fashola’s commitment to ensuring that the rural communities also enjoy the dividends of democracy.”
Continuing, he said: “This is one project that I would have loved my colleagues in the executive council to come and hand over, because some of them believe we do not have any rural areas in Lagos State. That notwithstanding, I envisage that this project would bring about rapid development as several cottage businesses would spring up from here. We should encourage our youths to get involved in agriculture. Even if they planted cassava, soon we could start garri processing factory here, we could even start exporting. With electricity, people have no need migrating to the urban areas in search of jobs, let them stay back and create jobs as the era of the white collar jobs has gone. By staying back, you are promoting a livable environment.”
He said government was handing over the project to the community so that the people can take ownership of the project and maintain them.
He, therefore, urged the CDA chairman, Alhaji Kolade Ogungbe to ensure adequate security of the project as government would not respond to any community that allows any of its facilities especially the armoured cables to be stolen.
The head of Department of the Electrical Unit, Mr. Abiola Olowa, described the project, which spanned three kilometres of feeder pillars, and a 500 KVA transformer, as one that was conceived by the ministry under this year’s budget and executed by direct labour.
Before hitting Shoko, Ojelabi had led the entourage to Ijegun, where his ministry rehabilitated and expanded a micro water scheme for the people of Olorunsogo/Ijegun communities in Igando/Ikotun LCDA.
The project engineer, Adisa Yinusa, said the water scheme had been vandalised and for several decades, the people of the area had been living without potable water. He added that besides rehabilitating the two old boreholes, the government constructed two new ones to further increase the capacity of the project to 10,000 litres, adding that before the end of first quarter next year, the project would be extended to adjourning communities.
Handing over the project to the community at a ceremony that had the representative of the Onijegun of Ijegun, Chief Balogun in attendance, the CDA Chairman Mr. Adeola Adegbite, thanked the government for the water project, adding that the residents had agreed to levy themselves some amount monthly for the maintenance of the facility.
“The CDA has set up a committee to ensure that the project would not become moribund again. Every house would be levied beginning from January for the purpose of maintaining this project,” Adegbite said.
Ojelabi, who praised the CDA for being proactive in already mapping out strategies for maintaining the facility, assured that government would maintain the project for two years, during which it would ensure that all other neighbouring communities are connected to the water scheme before handing over to the host community.
He said the issue of water is germaine to the state government and no efforts would be spared in ensuring that as many parts of the state as possible are covered by the state’s water corporation for the purpose of ensuring that safe and potable water is made available to all and sundry.
He, therefore, urged the people to continue to support the government in its efforts to ensure the improvement in the quality of life of the people.
Handing over the project to the people, Mr. Omotayo Fakolujo, who represented the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said the tour to Ijegun has afforded him the opportunity of knowing that some rural communities really exist and that some could even be as close as Ijegun. He assured that he would ensure the people’s request for assistance on the state of the 1.2 kilometre long Ijagemo-Afurugbin road and Orilaku road which is the only access to the project as well as the primary healthcare centre get the attention of the commissioner. He assured that though the projects were not captured in the next fiscal allocation as government is irrevocably committed to completing all existing construction projects, the roads could at least be graded and made passable before the next round of rain.
The project train shortly thereafter headed for Igbanko, near Imeke, in Olorunda LCDA, where the council Chairman Mr. Amida Abdul, led other eminent personalities and management team of the council in giving a rousing welcome to the Rural Development Commissioner and his team, who were in the area to hand over the Igbanko rural electrification project over to the community.
Speaking at the ceremony, one of the ministry’s engineer, Mr. Amzat, said the project which consists of 132 high tension poles and 50 low tension poles fed by a 33 KVA transformer took the department about four months to complete.
The CDA chairman Evang. E.O.Ogunyemi, thanked the state government for remembering the Igbanko community in its rural electrification programme. He said: “This is the first time in the last 30 years that this community would be feeling the impact of government directly. The closest community to us here, Imeke, is over 100 kilometres and and we go as far to Imeke to
charge our phones. We are grateful that at least we can do so many basic things in the confines of our community.”
He assured the government that the entire community would guard the project jealously and not let anything tamper with it.
Ojelabi who expressed happiness for seeing the inauguration of the project, urged the people to continue to support the government in all its activities. He said the ongoing residents’ registration exercise is another initiative that would enable the government have accurate statistics of the number of people in the area and which would enable proper planning. He, therefore, canvassed the people to rally behind the council chairman and register anytime the project was brought to the area.
He added that the registration exercise would also assist his ministry to defend its intervention proposals before either the state executive council or the law makers, who hitherto have a wrong impression about the population of rural dwellers in the state.
Apologising for the absence of his colleague in the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure Mr. Obafemi Amzat who was to have handed over the project to the people, Ojelabi said, though Amzat is presently defending his ministry’s budget before the House of Assembly, he would have at least ensured that the Deputy Governor Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire make the trip and perform the handing over ceremony, if he knew the roads would have been made passable.
Branching at Oto-Awori LCDA, just as the dusk was settling in, Ojelabi again delivered another people-centred project – a footbridge, to the rural coastal people of Etegbin-Ese-Ofin.
Ojelabi who was regarded as a home boy, having his roots in this LCDA, said the project was dear to his heart, as he, by the project, has permanently solved the age-long crisis facing these Island dwellers who had to cross from Ese-Ofin to Etegbin via a wooden bridge before the new concrete bridge was constructed by the government.
He said the new bridge has gone into history as the first concrete footbridge to be constructed anywhere in the state and has won the admiration of the governor who according to him, has adopted it as a reference to be copied anywhere in the state.
Thanking the people for the forbearing and patience with the government, Ojelabi said with the footbridge, cases of people falling into the river as a result of rotten woods on the now discarded wooden bridge, has become a thing of the past, even as he urged residents of the two riverside communities to take ownership of the project and ensure its regular maintenance to prevent degeneration.
He equally secured the commitment of the Oto-Awori LCDA Chairman Mr. Bolaji Kayode Roberts, who was at the ceremony to provide one sweeper to ensure the cleanliness of the bridge.
The Head of the Civil Engineering Unit of the Ministry, Dehinde Oduyemi said the 240-metre long bridge has a two-metre width and took about 52 piles on over five metres of drilling. He said his men carried out a number of soil test to come out with the requirements which he said would stand for as long as the people could assure its adequate maintenance.
Robert had in his welcome speech, praised the government for bringing the footbridge which he said might look insignificant to others to the people of the area.
“This project as insignificant as it looks would reduce mishap that has become a daily occurrence along this area and I see it as the beginning of rapid development of our area. Ese Ofin has been neglected for a very long time due to inaccessibility and I thank God that that has been addressed with this project; this would undoubtedly open a new vista of government’s presence in this rural area. I would also encourage the people to put this bridge to good use as this would encourage the government to do more,” the council chief said.
Undoubtedly, Ojelabi was very proud of his ministry’s intervention in these four local government areas.
Fielding questions shortly after the exercise, the commissioner said he was always driven by the passion to change the lives of the downtrodden that live in these rural areas and was always uneasy anytime anyone argues that there were no rural areas in the state.
“This ministry has exposed quite a number of rural areas, places that you would wonder how we managed to get there. For some, their major problem is road, for others it is electricity, or Primary Health Care Centre, or even school. There are so many forgotten communities on some of these islands that we have provided electricity, water and so on. We are committed to changing the face of the rural dwellers in Lagos State and making sure that they equally enjoy the same facilities like their kith and kin in urban areas because this is the only way to keep them where they are and prevent further rural-urban migration,” Ojelabi stated.
… Says,’ I’m alive’
The Akran of Badagry, Aholu Menu-Toyi 1, said on Friday he is not dead as being widely speculated.
The Akran told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Badagry, Lagos, that the news is false.
He appealed to members of the public to discountenance the false news.
“For over a week, the Palace has been inundated with stories via the mobile phone and social media, particularly the internet about my death.
“As you can see, I’m very much alive, enjoying a remarkable healthy lifestyle and attending to the day-to-day royal engagements within the kingdom, the state and the nation.
“By the grace of the Lord Almighty, I’m sure that I still have a long time to live on earth, so, I’m going to be here for a long time,’’ he said.
The monarch expressed regrets that the internet was frequently used to spread false information.
“Presently, the internet which is regarded as a versatile information communication technology is being negatively used by international criminals, who have no respect for the truth but relish in unethical practices.
“At all times, it is imperative to promote veracity and transparency in all our dealings as global citizens and unwholesome, unjustifiable and anti-social news must be completely avoided.”
The Akran urged the indigenes of Badagry to pray for the ancient town and to be law abiding citizens.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, has said that the administration of Babatunde Fashola is committed to the development of infrastructural facilities in the state.
Hamzet, who was fielding questions from reporters on why the state is seemingly struggling to get the infrastructural development of the metropolis right, said: “We are not struggling. We have the master-plan that we are implementing, which, of course, can’t be exhausted magically in a calendar year, given the enormous challenges inherited by this administration. The state believes that improved infrastructure is a major pivot on which poverty eradication can rest,” he said.
Citing the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Isheri-Oshun-Jakande Road, now fully awarded to Hitech Construction Company to complement the bridge works that started some time ago, and the Blue Rail Line project as examples, Hamzat said “the ultimate target of the administration is to develop sufficient infrastructure portfolio across the state for a competitive business environment.”
On residents’ fears about the deplorable state of most inner roads, especially in the suburbs, the commissioner stated: “Across the state, some roads are federal while some belong to the state. It is important that the major roads are made fully motorable before we fix a good number of the inner roads. But the state government has fixed a lot of the federal roads, thus reducing its financial ability to fix most state roads.”
He, however, hinted that the state had constructed a lot of major roads, adding, “others are currently under construction across the state. Last year, we started the construction of 156 roads, mostly, inner ones. And importantly, we are being careful with the number of roads being constructed at a time to prevent gridlock.” Continuing, he said: “We use the same approach in the rural areas-to rehabilitate as much as we can, bearing in mind that we can do all in a short while. However, many are resurfaced to bring relief to users. Such include the Isuti and Powerline roads in Ifako Ijaiye, Oke Agbo Street in Ojo Council Area and many others.
“It is to allow for motorable roads because it will be a traffic nightmare if we shut down all the roads at a time for rehabilitation or construction.”
On the crippling effects of vehicles that ply the roads daily, especially, oil tankers, heavy-duty and articulated ones, he said: “The load on our roads is very heavy; thus causing faster deterioration. Ninety-three per cent of containers coming into Apapa Port travel through Lagos roads. They are important to the economy of the state, since as a nation, we don’t have a standard rail infrastructure. The state traffic law regulates the movement of these vehicles to certain time of the day for the safety of road users.
The commissioner further said that it was good to develop satellite towns and it comes with standard and auxiliary roads. But, it is important that we take care of the existing roads. Now, the state is renewing the blighted areas such as Badia, Ajegunle and Sari Iganmu. A typical example is the housing construction at Badia with the accompanying auxiliary infrastructure.”
When reminded that most of the roads deteriorate easily, he said: “Some of the biggest threats to the roads are willful damage, conversion of roads to mechanic shops and car wash. Hence, the advocacy that we must as a community, take ownership of our roads. Also, we see concrete is an option; hence, we constructed the road leading to Gbagada hospital in Kosefe Local Government Area with concrete.”
Hamzat revealed that the state’s plan was to build infrastructure that can cater for 40 million people. He further said: “The state has also expanded its capacity for water transportation. Also, the Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) is on top of our waste disposal. Lagos State is making good progress on all fronts. As a mega city, there are unique challenges such as transportation, refuse disposal and others. Our approach is to tackle these challenges one after the other.”
Calling on the Federal Government to carry out its responsibilities in Lagos, he said: “Our prayer is for the Federal Government to take care of its responsibilities by fixing the Airport Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Apapa-Oshodi Road and other such infrastructure. Importantly, the Federal Government should allow the states to control these roads, but that must come with the resources that will allow them to carry out this responsibility. In essence, the Federal Government must shed weight and focus on security, immigration , and general aviation policies.
Drawing a comparison between Lagos and some states in the United States, the commissioner said: “The infrastructural availability in New York is far higher and the federating states in the US are truly independent and can control their destinies. That is not the case in Nigeria. We must practise true federalism. Lagos will continue to build infrastructure that will give us a competitive advantage to be a knowledge-based economy. We are already on the rise; we just need to keep the momentum going. We continue to focus on our developmental strategy of Power, Agriculture, Transportation and Housing.
“It is important that the two components in the budget, the revenue and expenditure, perform optimally. As a state government, we have focused on the capital expenditure which is why we have been able to achieve the type of infrastructural upliftment we have seen in the state. The revenue and the expenditure components must perform for the state to deliver people’s infrastructural needs. The revenue must be fully enhanced and reliable for us as a state to continue to uplift our society. So, we as people, must pay our taxes to build roads, sustain our hospitals, schools and so many other social amenities for people to enjoy better life.
Lagosians were rattled yesterday by the rumour of a likely plane crash.
Crowds of people rushed to Igando on the outskirts of the city to find a Dornier plane parked at a filling station. There were no signs of a crash.
It all turned out to be a rumour. The aircraft, which belongs to Lagos preacher Gabrial Odunyemi of Bethel Church, had been abandoned for long. It was being moved to a training facility in Badagry, the authorities said.
Bishop of Badagry, Anglican Communion, Rev Joseph Adeyemi, yesterday said the emergency rule declared by President Goodluck Jonathan in Yobe, Adamawa and Borno States, would restore peace in the troubled areas.
He briefed reporters on the Diocese’s Third Session of its Third Synod, which begins on Thursday at the All Saints’ Anglican Church, Agbara, Ogun State, by 2pm, with the theme: “The Rewards of Obedience.”
The Bishop urged Nigerians to support any step taken by the government to prevent the killing of innocent people, adding that the option of dialogue should also be kept open.
He said any insurgents arrested should be tried in law courts and punished.
Adeyemi added: “The problem we face in the nation today is that our leaders are arrogant, self-centered, greedy and unconcerned about their neighbours. The love of the masses is not in their hearts.
“The shepherds feed fat on the sheep and trample on the rest by investing in projects that have no relevance to the populace. The rewards of our collective disobedience are the bad roads, fallen standards of education, decaying infrastructure, religious wars and bad image abroad.
“If Christians obey the 10 Commandments and behave like Jesus Christ, Nigeria will be a better place to live in.
“The rewards of obedience include release of anointing, release of God’s power into our lives, increased prosperity, and achievement of peace without the barrels of guns.”
Adeyemi said the diocese, which marked its eighth anniversary on March 17, will launch the Bishop’s Charge on Friday by 10am, while the Synod’s Thanksgiving would hold on June 2 by 12 noon.
Slave trade operated in the 17th and 18th century has been adapted severally as movies in efforts to capture the reality of the period. However, few places still give graphic symbolism of the obnoxious slave trade. Such historic sights include Gberefu Island in Badagry, Lagos State. Another name for this island is Point of No Return.
Stories relating to this place leave one with horrific imagination about the magnitude of inhumanity committed on this soil years back.
To appreciate this one need to cast one’s mind back to some hundreds of years when the trading in human cargoes across the Atlantic was going on. Gberefu Island was the final outpost before slaves would be shipped through the Badagry natural harbour to the New World.
In Badagry, slave merchant houses could still be seen with the Baracoons and other tools used to keep and subdue slaves. The Mobees and the Seriki Abass compounds are some the families that actively participated in the slavery then. One could view some of the artifacts of slavery there.
At these family houses along the Badagry Marina lagoon waterfront, the slave during then were kept until when the merchants’ vessels berthed and the slaves would then be ferried across the Badagry lagoon. The stretch of lagoon water separating the Marina shore and Gberefu is about a kilometer. According to history, the shallow nature of Badagry made it impossible for the big merchant ships to berth hence the choice of the Gberefu. The island has Atlantic Ocean lapping its shores.
The ships would berth close to the ocean shore and the slaves would be loaded unto them using smaller boats.
It was from there the slaves were shipped to the Americas. History has it that once a slave crossed the Badagry lagoon and stepped on the Gberefu island, the slave’s case was foregone.
Because of the historic value of Gberefu, it has become a tourist site where many tourists, especially blacks in the Diaspora visit. Some retrace the steps of these ill-fated slaves. Such visits are usually very for the tourists.
To get to Gberefu, one needs to take a commercial boat from Badagry waterfront. The ferry trip takes abouth three to five minutes. From Gberefu jetty one would then have to walk for about 20 to 30 minutes to the beach front follolong the route one has the opportunity of seeing signposts informing tourists about notable points on the route. One of these is the well dug for farmish slave on their way to the ocean shore.
At the end of the untarred path, one gets to the shore. A cenotaph is built at the end of the route in remembraqnce of the slaves.
Outside the Gberefu Points of No Return there many places to visit in Badagry. They include the Vlekete slave market; the slave musuem; the first story building in nigeria; the Mobee family museum, Chief Seriki Abass compound, and many others.
• This is good, but there are other issues to be considered before giving a final nod to it
The report that the Federal Government, in conjunction with the Lagos State Government, plans to develop a deep seaport in Badagry, Lagos State, is cheering news. To push the quest, the Federal Government is reported to have inaugurated an eight-man Steering and Project Development Committee for the Badagry Deep Seaport in Lagos, with members drawn from the Federal Ministry of Transport, Lagos State Government, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).
As the transport minister, Senator Idris Umar noted, “the maritime sector of Nigeria, with 84,000 square nautical miles, is central to the nation’s economic development as a medium of transportation, for global commerce, resource exploitation and recreation”. With the combined handling capacity of the six ports at Apapa, Tin-Can, Onne, Port-Harcourt, Calabar and Warri at 60million metric tonnes out of the over 100million metric tonnes cargo coming into the country annually, it seems about time the Federal Government took steps to bridge the huge shortfall.
Of course a new seaport in Lagos means additional jobs as well as related support services will be created. This is good for Lagos. As a matter of fact, many people will argue that anything that would take our teeming unemployed youths from the unemployment queues is welcome.
We also appreciate the government’s intention in proposing the Badagry port; for instance the need to accommodate high volume of cargo generated through international maritime trade and to enable the country attain status of a maritime hub for West and Central Africa. The port will also accommodate dry docking facilities for super tanker vessels which would offer low-cost access to both offshore oil/gas fields.
These are laudable intentions. But then, we have to consider the other side of the coin. With only the Apapa and Tin Can ports in Lagos, Lagosians know what their experiences are, especially on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, as a result of the activities at the ports. The road is ever busy, with all manner of articulated vehicles either going into the ports to load, or coming from there with different kinds of cargoes. Because of heavy vehicular traffic, the road is overstretched, making it require being fixed almost all the time. We cannot count the number of accidents that the articulated vehicles plying the road have caused.
If there are alternative means of transporting the cargoes from the ports, perhaps the situation would have been different. There is no functional railway to take the heat off the road; even the road from Sokoto to Apapa that was conceived about 20 years ago has been abandoned. We do not know why, but if experience is anything to go by, then it is even possible that the government has forgotten that such an abandoned project exists. At any rate, even if we need a new port, won’t it further suffocate Lagos, giving the experience with the ports in the state?
What we are saying in essence is that the committee set up for the Badagry port may have some balancing act to perform. It should look at all the possibilities with a view to coming up with recommendations that would be truly beneficial to the state and the country at large. We count on the experience and expertise of its members and hope that they would come up with the best decision that will reduce to the barest minimum, if not completely eliminate, most of the hiccups presently encountered by stakeholders making use of the existing ports in the country.
Allegations of marginalisation trailed this year’s edition of the yearly Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF). Some critics in Badagry accused the organisers of poor representation. But Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka dismissed such claims as unfounded, reports ASSISTANT EDITOR ARTS OZOLUA UHAKHEME.
Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka has denied that Badagry was left out in the planning of the yearly Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF). The people of Badagry, he said, had always been involved in the festival each year since inception. Soyinka also dismissed claims that the festival is skewed towards intellectual discussions at the expense of promoting tourism.
“We involved Badagry people from the beginning. We visited them and spoke to the community leaders and we involved them in the entire process of the festival. Unfortunately, the next thing we get was blackmail by some people. Some even accused us of not encouraging tourism. That is not true,” he said.
Soyinka, who spoke in Lagos on the theme of next year’s edition of the festival, however, cautioned Badagry people to stop creating problems for the organisers of the festival. He stressed that every participant must follow the culture of the festival.
“If I take on any assignment and even if I am to remove it from a difficult place and stage the festival in my house in Abeokuta, it will still be called Lagos Black Heritage Festival,” he added.
He said Brazil would be the focus for next year’s festival, which would feature exhibition of arts and crafts, souvenirs and mementoes from Brazilians. He said the festival would examine how Nigeria and Brazil influence each other while ‘reminding ourselves of our extension and inviting our kinsmen home.’
“Our target this year is Brazil, especially when its black culture is a lived reality. It is a spiritual thing which I rarely encounter in the Diaspora. In fact, Brazilians are so emotional about black culture. It is a restoration, analysis and celebration event.
“We are trying to remind ourselves of our extensions and to invite our people from Diaspora to come here and recover in a very direct and possible way, an enriching way what they have left behind. We want to understand the reason why the closeness we have been developing between Nigeria and Brazil suddenly broke or disappeared. We are planning a big reunion,” he said. According to him, the festival would focus on Cuba in 2014 and Colombia in 2015. Soyinka explained that combination of many factors such as the festival is an opportunity for the youths or Nigerians in Diaspora to learn about their heritage.
The festival ambassador, Erelu Abiola Dosumu recalled that when she was first contacted to be part of the festival, she was confused adding that with time, the festival became very exciting. She described the festival as a true representation of what we have as a people adding that it is all about tourism, re-union and celebration.