By Peter Dansu For centuries, Badagry stood tall as a gateway town, a centre of trade, politics and influence long before Nigeria found its...
By Peter Dansu
For centuries, Badagry stood tall as a gateway town, a centre of trade, politics and influence long before Nigeria found its name. Yet today, the ancient coastal community struggles for relevance, battling questions about lost opportunities, faded voices and stalled development. A recent intervention by renowned historian and tourism expert, Babatunde Ajose, has reopened this difficult conversation, offering a sweeping historical account of how Badagry’s fortunes rose, fell and became trapped in a cycle of neglect.
Ajose’s commentary followed an opinion article by Badagry Today publisher, Peter Dansu, which asked a painful but necessary question. How did a town that once produced a king who served as Minister of Finance become a community still seeking recognition in modern Lagos.
According to Ajose, Badagry’s troubles did not begin yesterday. They stretch back over 150 years to the collapse of trade following the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Like many ancient communities across sub Saharan Africa, Badagry was hit hard by economic transition, but its situation was worsened by internal divisions and resistance to change.
When legitimate trade replaced slave commerce, educated returnees from Brazil, Freetown, Cape Coast and other emerging economies initially settled in Badagry. But hostility to the new order and Badagry’s documented defiance of abolition, recorded in European intelligence reports, triggered a mass relocation. The elites left. Capital followed them. Lagos became the beneficiary.
By the 1880s, European trading firms began abandoning Badagry for Lagos. By the 1920s, giants such as UAC, Miller Brothers and Lever Brothers had all departed. Streets that were once among the most developed in West Africa, particularly the stretch from the town hall to Agbalata Market, fell silent. Brazilian style houses were sold off cheaply as their owners moved on, physically and emotionally severing ties with the town.
Ajose notes that the negative image of Badagry became so entrenched that the returnees, who once represented the town’s elite class, vowed never to invest in or support its development again. Badagry slipped into obscurity until the emergence of Prince Claudius Dosa Akran.
A post World War executive and a major financier of the Action Group, Akran brought Badagry back into the political spotlight of the old Western Region. As a close ally of Obafemi Awolowo, and later as king, his influence grew. He served in the House of Chiefs and held several ministerial portfolios including local government, chieftaincy affairs, economic planning and finance. Under his watch, social amenities and landmark projects returned to Badagry, and the town was projected as the cultural capital of the Ogu Gun people in Nigeria.
His commitment to education and unity saw many Gunnuvis from present day Ogun State receive scholarships and settle in Badagry. But politics once again intervened. Akran’s neutrality during the Awolowo Akintola crisis angered powerful allies. The backlash was swift. Badagry, once more, paid the price for political differences at the top.
Ajose argues that one of Akran’s weaknesses was his failure to groom successors and separate his personal influence from the fate of the town. When his political friends turned their backs on him, they also turned away from Badagry.
Another turning point came with the appointment of Mobolaji Johnson as military governor of Lagos State. Johnson recognised Badagry as one of two future growth corridors for Lagos, alongside the Ibeju Lekki axis. In a bid to protect land for future development, massive government acquisitions were imposed.
What was intended as preservation became paralysis. More than 65 percent of land in Badagry remains under government acquisition till today, making land ownership and documentation far more difficult than elsewhere in Lagos. Unlike Ibeju Lekki, whose political leaders negotiated the release of acquired lands under later administrations, Badagry’s political class failed to do same. Development stalled.
Beyond land issues, Ajose traces a long history of rivalry and conflict. From the 1700s, Badagry competed fiercely with Lagos Island and Whydah in present day Benin Republic. Many historic attacks on Lagos were launched from Badagry, breeding mistrust and resentment that later translated into political hostility.
Politically, Badagry has often stood apart from prevailing power structures. From NCNC to NPN, NRC to GDM and APP, the town repeatedly found itself on the opposite side of dominant regional forces. It took the intervention of Governor Babatunde Fashola to finally integrate Badagry into the mainstream of Southwest politics under AC, ACN and later APC. Ajose poses a blunt question. How does a place develop after spending nearly 300 years in opposition to the powers that shape policy and investment.
For him, the most troubling chapter is the present. He criticises today’s political office holders for lacking vision, plans and strategic programmes. Instead of answering questions of accountability with ideas and measurable impact, they deploy young minds as attack tools, focusing on insults, photo opportunities and propaganda.
According to Ajose, any news, project or political activity that does not tangibly improve the lives of Badagry people is meaningless. Power, he argues, has been reduced to noise without direction.
Yet his conclusion is not without hope. Change, he insists, will come when Badagry’s people decide to rewrite their story. Until then, the town remains at the mercy of those who benefit from stagnation, feeding off history rather than shaping the future.
Badagry’s voice was not lost overnight. It faded through centuries of missteps, missed chances and political isolation. Recovering it will require honesty, unity and leadership that understands both the weight of history and the urgency of tomorrow.
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