Lagos is often called “no man’s land,” a phrase that implies the city was empty before colonial rule. But the truth is far richer—and far older.
Long before British colonizers arrived, Lagos—then known as Èkó—was home to the Awori people, descendants of Yoruba settlers who walked its shores, traced its lagoons, and honored its spirits. Power here was balanced, not conquered, with the Idejo chiefs acting as the spiritual landlords of the land.
Colonial treaties and policies tried to erase these ancestral claims, labeling the city “neutral territory” to justify trade, railways, and conquest. Yet, beneath Lagos’ concrete streets and towering buildings, history remembers. Names like Idumota, Iddo, and Ebutte Metta are more than neighborhoods—they are echoes of the people who first settled the land.
