Inscribing the Nation in Local Space: UniLag and the Histories of Displacement in Lagos
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi
Two years after its independence from the British in 1960, Nigeria established new universities in Lagos, Zaria and Ile Ife. The University of Lagos was founded as a federal institution, and the location they chose for its main campus displaced communities by the Lagos Lagoon. The optimism for the new state and its new institutions eclipsed the significance of the losses of the old Oke Ogbe community who had settled on the edge of the lagoon. By naming streets, landmarks, buildings, and spaces of the campus in support of a national narrative, officials wrote the new nation into this space of higher learning while simultaneously erasing local histories. People in Oke Ogba lost more than their names in this toponymic exchange –the new institution displaced grave sites, homes, mangroves, and fishing communities. This presentation grapples with the impact of the layers of loss in the making of Lagos, and the role that universities played in these now familiar processes. The scenes of displacement and loss are familiar in Lagos’s history; dating back to the destruction of quarters in the city’s core in 1851, to its annexation in 1861 by the British, and the subsequent waves of expulsions of Lagos communtiies from Eko to the mainland.
Bio:
Trained as both historian and computer engineer, Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi’s research into the history of West African cities combines a set of interdisciplinary interests in maps, mapmaking, and digital humanities. Her 2024 book, Imagine Lagos: Mapping History, Place and Politics in a 19th Century African City, explores the city’s 19th century history, rebuilding its past as a series of encounters: between men and women, between past and present, enslaved and free, Eko (the old town) and Lagos, and between the land and lagoons. The maps and data sources are available online at imaginelagos.com. Her academic writing has focused on Lagos, digital humanities, women and space, and mapmaking, and in 2019, her maps and research were funded in Journey of an African Colony, a Netflix documentary. Her research has been funded by the Andrew Mellon, Woodrow Wilson and Hellman foundations She teaches classes on Africa, urban history, and data storytelling at Howard University, where she is an Associate Professor of History. Prior to joining Howard, she was an Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Rice University’s Humanities Research Center, and Associate Professor of History at UC Riverside. For more on her maps and visualizations of Lagos, visit newmapsoldlagos.com. She received her PhD in History from NYU in 2016.