LAGOS THE OCTOPUS CITY.part one

Did you know Lagos was discovered by the aworis?I hope you know that."

"Yes we do.FIora Shaw named Nigeria but I still wonder who gave it the name sef?"

"Exactly that is where we re going.Lancelot De Freitas(1431-1462) a Portuguese man gave it the name.He himself grew up in Lagos, Portugal as a local Lagosians had gone to around Carter bridge to buy provisions in 1450 and looking towards ebute meta and seeing Carter bridge surrounded by water separated the Island and mainland was compelled to give it the name "Lagoon"to mean Lagos."

"Good but how did the name "Eko" came up and who coined it?"

"See the Benin people coined the word eko.Let me summarize as written in J.B.Losi M in the book entitled The history of Lagos have two versions and we can narrow down to a plausible version.The city was founded by olofin ogunfunminire the head of the aworis as group of hunters that migrated from Ile ife .Olofin was an ife prince who first settled at isheri Olofin a community located 12 miles to the Lagos north.Hence from there they settled in other parts of Lagos and widely dispersed in places like Irepu, Ado ado,Ogudu,Ojota,Ikeja etc.The southward settlements in Yana, Ebute meta,Ọtọ came later and like that later Ido that later the home of the Olofin the first ruler of Lagos perhaps not official.

However the book says prior to the aworis settlement there earlier aworis "

"Different from Olofin ogunfunminire?"

"Exactly much earlier version of aworis and they settled in places like Olopon,Alase,Tomuwa,Omume etc before the coming of Olofin."

"First settlement please "

They were first settled at Egun ibeji from which they dispersed widely across the city."

"Where is that?"

"Egun ibeji has gone extinct."

"Extinct okay"

"Olofin's children and group were known as aladejo(group of fisherman in the vicinities).He divided the land among his ten children the first child aromire,olokos.Led by aromire they swam across to Lagos island and many of the settlements bear their name.For instance Okoro at ọtọ,Ojota at ijora,Oniru at ịrụ,elegushi family constitution Victoria island,Oluwa or apapa at iwa etc.I think Onikan  was owned by DA Rocha family. "

"How come Benin lay claim to Lagos?"

"As you can see the explanation suggested otherwise and not true."

"There was a fight between Yoruba or aworis and Benin people what motivated the fight?"