Who Should Own Lagos?

In February 2022, I moved to Canada to continue my undergraduate studies after having begun attending virtual classes from Nigeria in 2021. During my orientation, I came to learn about the so-called ‘Dish with One Spoon’ treaty used by indigenous communities across the Americas to share hunting territory among different nations. In Canada, the law was promulgated in 1701 as a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee nations binding them in an agreement to share the territory and protect the land. It also governed how they welcomed newcomers to share this treaty in a spirit of peace, friendship, and respect. In a basic sense, the treaty—which essentially declares a pleasant welcome to newcomers in exchange for their commitment to treating the land and its people with respect—reads like a pact toward common human courtesy.

In 2014, the then-provost and vice president academic of Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Mohamed Lachemi, requested that the institution’s Aboriginal Education Council create a land acknowledgement statement to be used uniformly across the university. A land acknowledgement is a formal statement recognizing indigenous people in the Americas broadly, as ancestral custodians of their traditional territory in a bid to honour indigenous people who have lived on the land since time immemorial and to remind co-inhabitants of the need to acknowledge the indigenous people.

TMU is not the only university in Canada with a land acknowledgement statement. Recognizing and honouring Canada’s indigenous people and their territory is a nationwide tradition designed to foster peace by truth and reconciliation, which the Truth Reconciliation Commission defines as ‘a process of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous people.’ TMU’s version of the compact is omnipresent in the university’s affairs, from course materials to speeches at conferences, events and gatherings. When I first arrived on campus last year, I failed—as I would like to assume most new immigrants also would have—to understand why there was a need to reiterate something that seemed so obvious. But as I observed the March 2023 Lagos State gubernatorial election and the weaponization of ethnic sentiments in the run-up to the election, I came to a new understanding of the significance—and value—of TMU’s land acknowledgement statement. The treaty is a reminder of the horrific atrocities committed against Canada’s indigenous people but at its core, the treaty also serves as a reminder of the human decency that is antithetical to colonialism.