Afinni Family Urges Lagos Govt to Establish ‘History of Lagos Aborigines’

Sunday Ehigiator

In commemoration of the 110 years remembrance of their patriarch, Buraimoh Afinni which began yesterday, July 16, 2024, and is scheduled to end on July 25, the Afinni family of Lagos State has called on the state government to establish the ‘History of Lagos Aborigines’, so to preserve the history of the state and its traditional indigenes, while also putting to rest the belief that Lagos is a no man’s land.

Speaking to journalists at a press briefing held in Lagos, to relate the remembrance activities of their patriarch to the public, the Great Grand Child of Buraimoh Afinni, Dr. Sola Labinjo, noted that, “If we don’t know who we are, we are at the risk of extinction. If you go to Australia today and ask about the Aborigines, they are completely lost.

“It’s one thing to say they are lost. You also need to have records of the real owners. It is vital to have that and have it documented. Any cosmopolitan city, any centre of commerce, and commercial activities stands the risk of the population of the indigenous people being diluted. This is a fact.

“But the truth is that you need to know who you are. One of the tragedies especially for the indigenous people of Lagos is that what is now Nigeria was essentially Lagos in the big picture. And if you do not have this established in any form of history, we will just be found floating.

“Many people will call themselves a Lagosian, but when they die, we know where they go and bury them. But when a Lagosian dies, he or she ends up in the Ikoyi cemetery or other parts of Lagos.

“The body is not taken anywhere because there is no other place to which it belongs. And because Lagos was also Nigeria, like I said, and it was a small place at that time, there were a lot of intermarriages. So you find a situation where you wake up and realise your father or mother’s side is not even Lagos, and it goes down like that.

“So, people from Lagos are holding the short end of the stick. Whichever way, if a regular Lagosian applies for any benefits in this country today and finds that there is a better opportunity of claiming his mother’s side; he becomes a Kwaran and gets his benefits from there.

“If he finds that the chances of getting something from Osun are higher, he becomes an Osun indigene. But a Lagos man has no other place but Lagos. And every other person comes here to share that Lagosian status with him. So there is a need to also protect that.

“The state government, to the extent that it is for the people of Lagos, should be mindful of that fact and take practical steps to ensure that that is preserved.

“We wish the Lagos State Government will create an avenue for families to tell their stories and archive it as a piece of Lagos history from its aborigines.

“Agreed that everybody comes from somewhere else, but a place still belongs to those who have occupied it longest. Lagos belongs to those who had forsaken their origin and fully transplanted to Lagos. Their children were born here as each generation succeeds another.

“Most importantly, their departed family claimed their last stance in Lagos in the cemeteries where you can easily assemble those who are true Lagosians. Whether they are Aworis, the Agud.as, Tapas, Benin, etc, they belong nowhere except Lagos.”