Despite the long history of Lagos as a commercial centre and cultural melting pot, the city has remained vulnerable to tensions around indigeneity. Yet within the debates around who ‘owns’ Lagos, the city’s indigenous groups like the Ogus and Ekos are often left out.
Every day, I find myself learning new lessons and relearning old ones that seem new. One such example is the concept of indigeneity. The World Bank defines indigenous people as ‘distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy, or from which they have been displaced.’ Recently, I was forced to grapple with the meaning of indigeneity and its application to Nigeria during the 2023 Lagos State gubernatorial election, during which debates about ethnicity, nativity and claims to indigeneity featured prominently.
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