As a matter of fact, the Edos were the first settlers in Eko, now Lagos as given the name by the early Brazilian and European residents originally served as an out-post of the Oba of Benin, and by extension, the Edos, and not the Aworis nor the Yorubas, nor is it a No Man’s Land, but a FEDERAL TERRITORY, which I have been canvassing for decades should be the status of Lagos.

When nearly a decades ago in my capacity as the Chairman, Editorial Board of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc I ran series of articles on the status of Lagos, calling on the Olusegun Obasanjo Government to through appropriate legislation/s declare OUR LAGOS a FEDERAL TERRITORY, Femi Okunnu, former Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing went wild, hollering, writing and spewing rubbish on the pages of newspapers to counter my national concern for the status of Lagos.

I have never believed and will never, ever believe that Murtala/Obasanjo and other military heads of state before him were right in ever nurturing the thought and the idea of moving the Federal Capital Territory from a naturally very purposeful and befitting geographical location such as Lagos with it immense water bodies, very, very good for commerce and strategic defence growth to a purposeless and middle-of-nowhere – Abuja, that NOAH’S ROTTED ARK, for this was my first article on the people and commerce-unfriendly Abuja in the guise of congestion of Lagos and for the spurious reason of its vulnerability to external attacks.

Those who reasoned thus, were simply naïve and visionless. In fact, such people I must say loud and clear had a hidden agenda. And just as Lagos is under dispute, so also, is Abuja, for; apart from the Gbagyis (Gwaris); the Bassas, Gwandaras, Gades, Dibos, and the Koros, who were the initial settlers of Abuja, some Northern bigots and chauvinists, amongst whom are some Fulbes, Hausas and the Kanuris already do count Abuja as a State, meaning the North has 20 States.

They had in fact, said it loud and clear that in the event of a break-up of Nigeria, from my own point of view, God forbid, they would hold onto Abuja. Kwenskwently, (Consequently), Lagosists/Lagosites such as Rilwan Akiolu, Raji Fashola, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and all their fellow touts and Area Boys, even though presently, Nigerians, are “aliens”/”immigrants”, etc in Abuja; just as in their very small and very warped minds, they consider Ndigbo and other non-Yoruba Lagosians as “aliens”, “immigrants”, “settlers”, “strangers”/”guest”, even in their own fatherland!

And the good news is that as they take delight in repatriating fellow Nigerians from God’s Own Land, even OUR LAGOS, to which all Nigerians are heirs and trustees, where God alone is the Landlord, and so worthy of being called the Landlord, and not any of those earthly beings/miscreants/thugs now parading themselves as “Landlords”, so think they can decide the fate of their fellow human beings, including usurping their voting rights through threats of death, because in their delusion of grandeur and pitiful ignorance, OUR LAGOS is their land, so they can do whatever they like to any goddamned “immigrants”, including causing the blood of such “dogs” and “baboons” to ceaselessly flow like the Niagara Falls. More so, when that Butcher-Marshall of the Federation – Mujemadu Buje-eyan is there to reward them with contracts and medals.

THE RELOCATION FROM OUR LAGOS TO THEIR ABUJA

Looking back, this was the unkindest cut to our national unity – integration and national cohesion, which Lagos very much represents until little minds like Oba Rilwan Akiolu, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola, Femi Kusa and other idiots appeared from a nearby garage/motor park and move their bulldozers to a land that had for decades held us together as a people and as one!

Had we visionaries in that nation and purposeful leadership, Lagos was a natural experiment as a FEDERAL TERRITORY to be replicated in at least six major cities in the current geo-zones of Nigeria, and having done so, continue to create many other cities within the Nigerian Federation, which all will legally be termed FEDERAL TERRITORIES or UNITY CITY OR UNITY ZONE or UNITY CENTRE or SPECIAL TERRTORY or SPECIAL ZONE with their governments distinct from their State Governments, and answerable only to the President, Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

These cities or FEDERAL TERRITORIES which must be so-created from time to time, must have their Governments to be known and called GREATER…AUTHORITY, GREATER LAGOS AUTHORITY, GREATER KANO AUTHORITY, GREATER CALABAR AUTHORITY, GREATER ABEOKUTA AUTHORITY, OGOJA CITY or THE CITY OF OGOJA, GREATER OGOJA AUTHORITY, etc, having their own Mayors, deriving their Governments and authority from the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and answerable to the Government at the centre – the Presidency (the Federal Government), not vested in a ministry, but in the Presidency!

As a matter of fact, now that the ethnicists have for reasons best known to them, although this was exhumed, nursed, watered, nourished and encouraged by Mallam Muhammadu Buhari, who in fact, is the number one enemy of our national integration, cohesion and unity, it is not late for him to immediately and by EXECUTIVE ORDER declare Lagos as a FEDERAL TERRITORY and go on to by the same instrument declare six cities within the current geo-zones of Nigeria as FEDREAL TERRITORIES/ZONES or better still, declare all the former provinces in Nigeria as FEDERAL TERRITORIES.

If we must integrate, if we must cohere, if we must live together, if we must ever unite, Nigerians need to be free, move about, work, do businesses and derive their beings and have their peace in their fatherland – the ONLY place they have to call their own and home.

The Lagosists/Lagosites (terms being used derogatorily and with an unapologetic disdain for these excrements of national unity, cohesion and integration) must be aware that Lagos is, because all of us are; and it is what it is now because we are Nigerians – and has been what it has been and what it will ever be because all of we is one.

Therefore, Lagos is the fruit of all who had settled there and visited there for one reason or another down the ages. Above all, the expanse of land constituting the Lagos of today, and the geographical expression called Nigeria came into being, NOT by any person’s efforts, creativity, invention, innovation and imagination but because the Voice from the Excellent Glory spoke it into being when the earth was without form, and void…LET THERE BE…Thus, Lagos is the spoken word of God.

Genesis 1 King James Version (KJV)

1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

² And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

³ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

⁵ And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

⁶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

⁷ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

⁸ And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

⁹ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

¹⁰ And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

¹¹ And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

¹² And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”