BADAGRY: BAD PAST, I AGREE
…But the present is pleasant
By TOPE ADEBOBOYE (topebentop@yahoo.com)
Sunday, November 8, 2009

•Badagry Heritage Museum Photo: Sun News Publishing

Living index

At the very hip of Nigeria’s South-West where the land sits on the sea, on the highway leading out of Nigeria through Cotonou into other major cities along Africa’s west coast, there you’ll find Badagry.

Along that long coastline of gangling coconut trees, by the spot where the lagoon briefly hugs the Atlantic before the latter continues its global voyage, that’s where Badagry calmly rests.

Those who founded Badagry were neither artists nor a tribe of troubadours. But for the creative mind, Badagry is the idyllic abode. From Ahovikoh through Awhanjigoh to the other quarters that make up this serene headquarters of Nigeria’s Ogu (others call them Egun) nation, the air wreaks rhythms that grip the ear, cadences that continually stir the soul like the verses of a medieval muse.

Even at that, wherever you look in the town, your eyes are reminded of the sordid deeds that once soiled Badagry’s air, its waters and its soil; iniquitous acts that turned the city into a dreaded destination for black natives from Ikogosi to Ikot-Abasi.

And if your ears are well tutored, they will most certainly catch the faint echoes of a painful past; soft, soulful chants seeping forth from the centre of Badagry, racking the mind like agonizing sighs from the cryptic grove of some traumatized god.

Bridge and bridge
Badagry, in the eyes of many a tourist, will depict nothing but a long, blissful beach. In the town, the sea and the lagoon cohabit side by side in a rare wedlock of the gods. Add that to the aesthetic, satiating sight of an endless array of coconut trees lining its limitless shoreline as well as the fresh breeze oozing out of the atmosphere and you realize why Badagry is such a tranquil, delighting oasis.

Badagry is also a bridge, a licit link between Nigeria and the rest of West Africa. From Ghana, Togo, Benin and other countries on the West Coast, trucks and trailers laden with goods come in to Nigeria through Seme and Badagry. Each day in many parts of Lagos, drivers of commercial cars and buses raise their voices while seeking passengers to Abidjan, Accra, Lome, Cotonou and other places. Their route to these countries is actually the battered Lagos-Badagry Expressway.

In the years of yore, Badagry’s bridge led thousands of miles beyond any town in West Africa. That bridge took millions of innocent black folks across the ocean to strange worlds far away from the world of their forefathers. It was an evil, bitchy bridge that literally led to unmitigated misery, horror and death. Badagry was a town whose very name connoted evil. It was a land of no return. Badagry wasn’t just the end of the road; it was the end of the world. Ask any of the millions who got sold off to European slave dealers in Badagry, men, women and children whose destinies were permanently altered after they were kidnapped, bound, gagged and forced to cross the lagoon into slave vessels bound for the Americas, folks sentenced to eternal servitude in some strange, wicked world by invading Europeans.

Even now, the pains of those evil acts resonate in continents far away from the sandy shores of Badagry. In the United States, in Haiti, Brazil and across the West Indies, the indignation of slavery is being experienced even till this day. And the pernicious relics of the terrible era of slave trade remain in many places around the Slave Coast today.

On Badagry, sundry songs have been sung and varied verses composed. Jossy Idam writes for Sunday Sun, but he’s also a gifted poet. Of Badagry, Jossy sings:
Bad –ah-gry/ Ya-ya-geri
Am bad,/ I agree. But had no hand
In your inhumanity/ of years ago
At Yenogoa.
The Oyinbo proposed / and you were disposed
You combed Ehugbo /sold Igbos
and herded them / here.
Am also a victim/ used, abused…
You and your children/will always return
to Badagry/to brood,
Poke at the dirt/of your misdeeds –
mind-trace/the Atlantic trade route,
on the sour back /of the Igbo, Egbas – Binis
you bundled to /Antiles and
Ahh – meri – kah.

Badagry’s birth
Badagry has been around for much longer than many will admit. The 2008 electronic version of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica noted that Badagry was “founded in the late 1720s by Popo refugees from the wars with the Fon people of Dahomey.” But try selling this theory in the town, and you instantly incur the wrath of Badagrians. To any of the proud indigenes of this hospitable habitat, Badagry had been born centuries before the 1720 date claimed in the British big book. Badagry, you are told, came into being around 1425. You’ll also hear an interesting story onhow the town came about its name.

Agbede’s farm
Unlike Oyo, Ibadan, Abeokuta or any of the towns and cities that make up the Yoruba nation, Badagry was neither conceived nor born in Ile-Ife. The town’s story started from a place not by any means close to that acclaimed cradle of the Yoruba race.
The Ogu people who first settled in Badagry were said to have migrated from a community called Ajah Tado, a settlement situated on the Togo-Benin border. It was from this community that the founders of Badagry came. Navigating the creeks, waterways and the lagoon, they fared through the wild and the wilderness, finally berthing on an island located by the gods between the sea and the lagoon. The place is called Gberefun.

The leader of the party was a farmer called Agbede who later owned a vast plantation across the lagoon. But the settlers had little peace in their new land as warriors from Dahomey regularly raided the settlement. Eventually, the people relocated across the lagoon, pitching their tents near Agbede’s farm. Agbede greme which in the Ogu tongue means Agbede’s farm became the name for the new town.
Seconds scurried into seasons and days dissolved into decades. The people were later joined by the Awori and the town continued to grow.

“The Yoruba were the ones who turned Agbede greme to Agbadarigi,” says Peter Olaide Mesewaku, president of Badagry Tourism Club and curator at the popular Badagry Heritage Museum. His position is supported by Babatunde Ajose, a Badagry native and Mesewaku’s assistant at the museum. Beyond their day jobs at the museum, Mesewaku and Ajose are clear authorities on Badagry history. They are both authors too. Mesewaku has published plays and other literary works, including Awhangan, Lord of the Tigers. Ajose also wrote the books Chronicles of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Welcome to Badagry, Haven of Tourism.

Agbadarigi till today remains the traditional name adopted by the Yoruba for Badagry. According to Ajose, the name was later modified to Badagri and Badagry by the Europeans who couldn’t pronounce gb.
Both Mesewaku and Ajose are passionate about their town and they are unapologetic about it. “There are some people who ignorantly claim that Badagry means Bad Agreement. That is a fallacy,” Mesewaku says. Ajose concurs.

“You can never see anything like that in any book written on Badagry,” he informs. “It is a later day misleading notion invented by some individuals for some reasons known to them. Anyone spreading that fallacy should be asked to expatiate on it. I’m sure they won’t have too much to say.”

Badagry today
Badagry is about 57 kilometres from Lagos, but a journey from Mile Two to the town can take up to two hours. The road is bad and dangerous, full of killer craters and potholes. Security agencies, mostly policemen and customs officials stationed at every portion of the road regularly milk legitimate road users as well as smugglers and other criminals, causing traffic bottlenecks on a daily basis.
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, has started the reconstruction and expansion of the thoroughly devastated road. But the federal authorities are yet to find a lasting remedy for the conduct of security men on that major highway.

Badagry is not an isolated enclave. It is surrounded by a number of towns and villages, including Ajara, Mowo, Kweme, Ikoga, Ibereko, Ashipa, Topo, Ganyingbo, Iragbo and many others.
Like a typical coastal town, Badagry has a sandy soil. Between late March and October, the town enjoys an annual rainfall, and the dry season starts in October and lasts till March. There are also swampy areas in Badagry. At such places, farmers grow crops like rice, cassava, maize and the like.
The town is divided into eight quarters, each traditionally administered by a white cap chief. Jegba Quarters, where the town’s paramount ruler, the Akran, comes from, understandably produces no white cap chief. The present Akran of Badagry is His Royal Majesty, De Wheno Aholu Menu-Toyi 1.

BADAGRY THEN
In the beginning, those who populated Agbede Greme lived peaceful, purposeful lives. They were great farmers and fishermen. They also wove mats and baskets in commercial quantities. But the peace of Badagry was punctured when the Portuguese discovered the place just after about five decades of the town’s existence.

Slavery didn’t start in Badagry. As far back as the Old Testament days, slavery had thrived in several communities around the world. But then, the practice wasn’t on a commercial scale. It was the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that stretched man’s inhumanity to his fellow man to unimaginable proportions. Those were days when a horse attracted more value than a healthy male in a European market.

From Europe with woes
In the mid 1400s, gripped by an overwhelming (some would say inordinate) desire to explore the coast of West Africa, the Portuguese King Alfonso licensed a Lisbon merchant, Fernao Gomez to travel round the region. In 1472, Gomez’s ship, upon discovering land and life, berthed around Badagry. In order to show their king proof that some black beings lived in the newfound land, the crew of the vessel captured a few black men, women and children and took them to Lisbon where the king ordered that they be put to maximum use on the plantations. The slave masters discovered that the black folks were a strong breed. Seeing that more of such men would be of tremendous use to them on the farms, the Europeans sailed back to Africa. They stayed around the coast and, on daily basis, raided the settlements for defenceless young men and women and ferried them off to Lisbon which had the first slave market in Europe.

After the Americas were discovered, the demand for slaves soared because more hands were needed for work on the new plantations in the West Indies. No one tells the slave trade story better than Mesewaku. Hear him: “Following the discovery of the continent of America, the demand for African slaves expanded. That period almost coincided with the period that the Protestants broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, led by Britain. Until then, the monopoly of slave trade was given to the Portuguese alone. The British then decided to explore the West Coast of Africa on their own. They had two reasons: to spite the Vatican and to break the Portuguese monopoly. That was how a full scale Trans-Atlantic slave trade began.”
Thus the British, French, Dutch and other Europeans joined their Portuguese brethren in the slave trade. And since more slaves were now needed, the Europeans had some partnerships with the kings along Africa’s west coast.

They gave the kings manufactured products in exchange for slaves. Soon, slave trade became a viable, flourishing business both for the Europeans and their black allies. In 1502, a slave market was established in Badagry. Located in the centre of the aged town, the market was opposite the shrine of Vlekete, the goddess of the wind and ocean. The market opened every five days. Slaves were brought to the market from far-flung places hundreds of kilometres away in the most inhuman conditions. All the eight quarters of Badagry were also involved in supplying slaves to the Europeans and most of such slaves were shipped to the Americas. Their descendants remain in several countries and continents today, forever denied of their past and pedigree.

The African-American author, Lerone Bennett, in his successful book, Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America 1619-1964 traces how blacks came into America. You can almost touch the anguish in his soul as he poured out his heart through his pen. He wrote: Most of the Negro slaves came from an area bordering a 3,000 mile stretch on the West Coast of Africa. They came, chained two to two, left leg to right leg, from a thousand villages and towns. They came from many racial stocks and many tribes, from the spirited Hausas, the gentle Mandingos, the creative Yorubas, from the Ibos, Efiks and Krus, from the proud Fantins, the warlike Ashantis, the shrewd Dahomeans, the Binis and Senegalese....

Slave Coast
When the Europeans came, they divided West Africa into four and gave each area a name depicting the things being exported from such an area. For instance the area from Sierra Leone and Guinea was called the Grain Coast since a lot of grains were discovered there. The area now named Ghana was literally swimming in gold and so, it became the Gold Coast. Around Abidjan and other communities in that part of West Africa, the Europeans found a large presence of elephants; so they named the area Ivory Coast. And in Badagry, since slaves were the major export, Slave Coast became its natural nickname.
The slave market in Badagry flourished in its perverse trade through the centuries. In 1510, the Europeans built a jetty in Badagry on which they anchored their schooner. And from the town, no fewer than 17,000 slaves were being moved to the Americas on a yearly basis.

As the trade thrived, it soon became some sort of survival of the fittest. You were either a slave or a slave merchant. Many were those black slave dealers who would later discover themselves gagged aboard a vessel bound for the Americas after an innocent drink from a seemingly benevolent European merchant.
After the slaves were captured, they were gagged with different chains on their hands, legs and neck. Some had their lips pierced and padlocked. In those days, the motor car hadn’t made its entry into West Africa, so the slaves had to foot it over hundreds of kilometres away. At the Vlekete market, they were scanned, selected, bargained over and bought by the Europeans. In a bid to properly distinguish slaves belonging to individual European merchants, many of the slaves were branded in a most savage manner.

A red hot piece of iron, straight from the oven, would be applied on the bare back of the slave and the name and country of the man buying him will be viciously carved on the wound. For instance, to separate a slave belonging to James from England from another bought by Jean from France, the slaves would have tags like John, England or James, France sculpted on their backs with scalding steel. Many captured slaves met their slow, painful end in the process. Others contacted infections as they were abandoned with their wounds. Others met their cruel fate in the wilderness on the way to Badagry in the hands of man-eating beasts. Those who survived the savagery were then kept in the barracoons, some enclosure constructed for the temporary confinement of slaves pending the arrival of other slave vessels. They were built by the Europeans and handed over to their African collaborators. Not a few were those who perished inside the barracoons in Badagry. Till today, the barracoon used by a major slave dealer, Seriki Abass, remains in his family compound.

The slaves were then forced to the boats, flagellated all the way by their masters like some thieves on their way to the gallows. They would cross the lagoon in boats before getting to a spot across the waters in Gberefun called Point of no return. A well was dug along the slave route by the local slave dealers and slaves were forced to drink water from the well. After just a sip of the magical water, the slaves promptly lost their senses and followed their masters sheepishly.

A glimpse of horror
Following the abolition of slavery, many of the reminders of those dark days were destroyed. The slave market, the fort and many other relics of that era were thoroughly wiped out. But there are a few museums in Badagry today that are keeping alive the memories for the present generations and their offspring. The Mobee family, one of the most visible in slave trade in those days, has one. So does the Seriki Abass family. There is also one in the palace of the Badagry monarch. The Lagos State government also has plans to put up a museum at the spot where the infamous slave market once stood. Among the present lot though, the Badagry Heritage Museum hosts the richest relics.

Indeed, a visit to Badagry without a call at the Badagry Heritage Museum wouldn’t be the most successful of journeys. Tears will cascade down the cheek and chin of many a man after spending some time at the museum. A short visit to the museum would leave the most stone-hearted with a bowed head after sighting some of the grim vestiges of those tarnished times.

“The Badagry Heritage Museum is a measure taken by the Lagos State government to preserve what was left of Badagry after the 1852 Abolition Treaty signed between the Badagry chiefs and the British government,” says the curator. “In the treaty, it was stated that all the things used during the slave trade must be destroyed. I think that was to wipe out the evidence of slave trade from Badagry. That was when the slave market was destroyed, the slave port was pulled down, and the Portuguese fort was destroyed. This museum is perhaps the most comprehensive collection of materials on the slave trade era in Nigeria today.”
Inside the galleries are assorted chains used to gag slaves in those days. They are of various shapes and sizes. In their ‘benevolence’, the slave dealers even remembered the kids. They made special chains for the kids and those chains are not as thick as the elders’.

Slave trade flourished in Badagry until 1852. That was when Badagry chiefs signed the abolition treaties with the Queen of England. The practice still continued though until 1888 when the last slave-laden vessel left the coast of Badagry for Brazil.

Enter the missionaries
But Badagry doesn’t tell just the tale of that pernicious past. The town also opened the way for European missionaries to come to Nigeria to spread the gospel of Christ and the gospel of knowledge.
The newspaper learnt that a Badagry resident, James Fergusson had on March 2, 1841, with the approval of the Badagry monarch, sent a letter to English missionaries, inviting them to Badagry. The missionaries arrived on September 24, 1841 and the first Christian sermon was reportedly preached in Badagry that day. The curious congregation sat under the Agia tree in the centre of the town. By the time the Agia fell in 1959, it had spent about three centuries on that spot. The missionaries stayed till December before leaving for Abeokuta.
But they were back soon after, according to Welcome to Badagry; The Haven of Tourism, a book penned by Babatunde Ajose.

“While in Badagry, the missionaries established the first primary school in Nigeria called Nursery of the Infant Church in 1843. They also built the first storey building in Nigeria in 1845. The first international market was also established in Badagry. The missionaries built the first church, the first agric school, the first teacher training school etc. In fact, the town is one of the first to be urbanized in West Africa alongside cities like Cape Coast, Benin City and Freetown with over 30 streets in the 18th century.”
Badagry is also cited as the place where the British first indicated their interest in ruling Nigeria. The town was where the Union Jack was first hoisted in 1843 outside Wawu’s compound, Ahovikoh Quarters. The office of the colonial District Officer was built in1863 while the residence of the top colonial officer was constructed in 1870.

Besides treating the eyes to a feast of the relics of the slave trade era, Badagry has a number of other places that lure the tourist. Nigeria’s first church located along the Market Road, opposite the Akran’s palace, the District officer’s residence located beside the first storey building, the Badagry Central Mosque built in 1877, the Ganho Slave Dungeon dug in the 16th century as a central store for keeping slaves before the arrival of slave ships, the District office built in 1863 which now houses the Badagry Heritage Museum, are some of the places that every caller in Badagry must spend some minutes at. There is also the Badagry Slave Port and the Point of no Return along the slave route across the lagoon in Gberefun.

Controversies
Badagry, in the pre-colonial times, was said to have been blessed with a flourishing economy. Many strong empires of those days, including Oyo and Dahomey, made several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the kingdom. Because of its booming economy, prominent people displaced from their strongholds found Badagry a viable alternative. Some Lagos kings, including Akinsemoyin, Akitoye and Adele had taken refuge in Badagry at different times.

But recently, doubts are being raised in some quarters over some events that gave Badagry its fame.
“Abeokuta was the first town in Nigeria to come in contact with evangelism by the Western world,” so asserted an Egba leader, Chief Adewumi Olusoji Adefolu, the Nlado Ake of Abeokuta while speaking with this writer early in the year. In the opinion of many Badagrians, however, the respected chief had committed nothing less than a monumental faux pas.

“It is quite unfortunate that some people would be striving to change the course of history,” Ajose informs the writer in Badagry. “Every history book will tell you that Badagry was the first place to be visited by the missionaries. The first Christian service was conducted in Badagry on September 24, 1841 while the missionaries didn’t visit Abeokuta until January 5, 1843. Even the Encyclopaedia Britannica says Badagry became the site of the first European mission, the Methodist, in Nigeria in 1842. So what are we talking about?”
He also wonders why Ogun State prides itself as the Gateway State. Since Badagry opened the way for missionaries to come to Nigeria, and is still the lawful route outside Nigeria, Badagry is the real gateway, he insists.

A few weeks ago, Wazirin Katsina, Dr. Abubakar Sanni Lugga, had told Mike Jimoh of The Sun that the first storey building in Nigeria was not in Badagry. According to the emirate’s traditional prime minister, the rightful recipient of that honour should be none other than the Gobarau Minaret in Katsina which in his words was built in 1493.
But before you even broach the subject in Badagry, a legion of angry lips will be waiting to counter the suggestion. Among them is Mr. Tunde Adekunle. He isn’t a native of Badagry, but the town has been his abode for the past 17 years. A trader originally from Ota in Ogun State, Adekunle says the claim is just preposterous.
His words: “Everyone in the world knows that the first storey building in Nigeria was built in Badagry. I don’t think we should stir up unnecessary controversies where none exists.”

Culture hub
Badagry was where the Europeans first berthed in Nigeria. That has in no significant way deprived the people of their rich, deep cultural heritage, however.
Many natives regard their hometown’s rich culture as a thing of pride. In times long dead, the only religion favoured by the people was the worship of several gods. The Ogu people worship deities like Agbalata, Nabruku, Vlekete, Hevioso, Athali and others, while their Yoruba neighbours worship Egungun, Gelede, Igunnuko, Ogun, Oro, Sango, Olokun and others.

With the coming of Christianity and Islam, many people in the town embraced both religions. But even with their orthodox faiths, many Badagry men and women still believe firmly in the efficacy of their traditional religions. The Zangbeto, the traditional security organization of the Ogu nation, is till today very popular in Badagry. In fact, the minimal crime rate recorded in Badagry has been attributed to the effective policing system of the Zangbeto cult. Badagry also gave the world the Sato, celebrated as Africa’s tallest drums.
Among the many traditional festivals in Badagry is the Vothun festival. Vothun has since been corrupted into different words across the world, the most popular being voodoo. There are many gods owned by different families, and each family must have an avoseh to carry its own god. Devotees of different gods also hold their festivals at different times in a year. In recent times, the festivals in Badagry have been receiving government’s attention with the organisation of the annual Badagry Folk Festival by the Badagry-based cultural organisation, the African Renaissance Foundation (ARF). Other festivals in the town are the Badagry Coconut Festival, the Badagry Heritage Festival, the Black Heritage Festival and the Fanty Carnival, among others. Wedding, naming and burial ceremonies are also celebrated with special rites in the coastal town. There is also the Gbenopo Royal carnival during which the king visits the different quarters in Badagry to salute his subjects.

The Badagry woman
You might be unable to distinguish the Ogu woman from her Yoruba counterpart judging by her looks. Like her counterpart in most African societies yet untainted by the European-imported feminism theory, the Badagry woman is quite submissive to her husband. She is also a hardworking woman, always available to support her family. But there is some snag. In some areas outside Badagry, it is said that no matter how long she stays with her husband, the Badagry woman will always end up back in her father’s compound.
“It is not true that all Badagry women will always return to their fathers’ house,” Mesewaku explains. “But the truth is that there are clear cut roles for some women in Badagry apart from their roles as wives.”
In truth, at some stage in Badagry, some elderly women may be summoned back to their quarters for some mandatory family responsibilities. One of such duties is membership of the Tanyino cult. In Badagry, the roles of members of this all-female sect are very significant.

When a new king is about being crowned, the Akran-elect goes into seclusion for 90 days during which he is expected to commune with the gods and his ancestors. Throughout the period, the Tanyinos are the only ones with an unfettered access to the king-in-waiting. They cook his meals and tutor him on the general deportment of the Badagry monarch. And when the king has completed that mandatory traditional task, it is the Tanyinos that will install the beaded crown on his royal head. That is why they are revered in the town.
There are also those women referred to as the Ajogan. Composed of wives of princes and men with some affinity with the palace, the Ajogan are women whose duty it is to make the king happy. Without straining the eyes, you can see them at the king’s palace. During festivals, say the Gbenopo Royal Carnival, the women accompany the king on his royal tour of the town, singing and dancing to the Akran’s delight.
Badagry is believed to have the largest coconut plantation in Nigeria, with thousands and thousands of coconut palms lining up its coast. To celebrate that aspect of their lives, the Gunuvi Heritage Entertainment organized the Badagry Coconut Festival in August this year. The festival is going to be marked annually.

Bad-angry?
Its name might suggest a mix of two bad adjectives. But to themselves or to their guests, indigenes of Badagry are neither bad nor angry.
Olaide Osoba has lived and run his business, a large bar and restaurant, in Badagry for many years. The man who hails from Ado-Odo in Ogun State says when it comes to being hospitable to strangers, no town does it better than the former farm of Agbede. Folks in Badagry are always willing to lend a helping hand to you at all times, he confesses.
“Badagry is a cool place for my kind of business,” says the owner of Islander Bar and Restaurant located along the marina near the former slave port. “This is a very peaceful place. The people know how to relax. It’s not every town that is blessed with this kind of environment. So you come here and enjoy. If you like, sit down and allow the breeze from the sea and the lagoon to caress your body. Take a look at the long line of coconut trees, and your mind is at rest. What else are you looking for? Badagry is the place to be.”
Badagry is serene and very safe. “This is one town where you can sleep with your two eyes closed,” Osoba informs. “There is nothing like robbers or things like that. Here in my bar and restaurant, we hardly lock our doors and no one comes around when we are not here.”

“It is not likely that you will find a Badagry girl engaged in prostitution,” Bisi Johnson who identifies himself as a proud Egba boy in Badagry, tells the writer. “Some people doing shady businesses are living in some of the communities close to Badagry. Many of these people are smugglers and they have loose cash. It is not unlikely that some young ladies needing easy money will sell their bodies.”
After centuries of living together, people in Badagry share many things with the Yorubas. But they still have delicacies that belong solely to them. One of such is the Oyokun, a mixture of corn flour and beans spiced with red oil.

Hotels, restaurants and more
Badagry is an old town, but the town parades several hotels for the visitor. A few of them are the Sycomore Hotels in Ajara Topa, Super Flamingo in Ajara Topa, J-Splash Garden and Nite Club, Mercy Gate, Hotel De James, Soketta Hotels, and many more. Some of the restaurants where hot meals can be purchased are Jolaz, Museum Kitchen at the Badagry Heritage Museum and Islander Bar along the Marina. Badagry is also blessed with many beaches and resorts, including the popular Suntan Beach and the Whispering Palms Resorts. There are many areas in Badagry where cold drinks and hot fish pepper soup can be relished.

Future assured
Badagry’s past was bad, agreed; but its present is pleasant.
There are hardly any industries in Badagry. You can’t miss the rue and the regretful tint in their tones as Badagry sons dwell on the town’s past and its present. Badagry opened its arms to receive Nigeria’s first missionaries. But unlike what you would have expected, the town is not really developed. There are no industries in the town, just as higher institutions of learning are scanty.
“I think it might be spiritual,” John Adewale Dosu, an indigene of the town tells the writer. “Maybe the gods are angry with our town as a result of what happened during the slave trade. Maybe Badagry is under a curse. Otherwise I can’t understand why places like Lagos, Abeokuta and the rest are developed and Badagry isn’t. It’s a shame.”

Things might soon change for the better though. Recently, Marlon Jackson, a member of the rested Jackson Five and elder brother to the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson has been visiting Badagry alongside a consortium of American and Nigerian businessmen. The mission of the businessmen operating under The Motherland Group (TMG) is to set up a multi-million dollar tourist centre in the town. Tagged the Badagry Historical Resort Development Project, it will include a memorial and a museum about slavery, a theme park with a slave ship replica, casinos, shops, a golf course and condominiums. The resort would also house memorabilia from the glory years of the Jackson Five. According to TMG, tourists would spend at least £285 million in the resort’s first year.

Plans are in top gear by the Lagos State government to reconstruct the Lagos-Badagry Expressway and build a museum where the former Vlekete market once stood. If all these fall into place, Badagry might yet take its rightful place among favoured destinations in this part of the world.

•NEXT WEEK:AWKA