Building The Lagos Central Business District

On Friday January 14, 1966, Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, KBE, first and only Prime Minister of independent Nigeria rode to work as was usual from his residence, right opposite Randle Hall to the Cabinet office behind the Race Course or what is now known as Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS).It was a short ride and […]

On Friday January 14, 1966, Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, KBE, first and only Prime Minister of independent Nigeria rode to work as was usual from his residence, right opposite Randle Hall to the Cabinet office behind the Race Course or what is now known as Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS).
It was a short ride and as his car cruised down the quiet streets, he picked up the papers that had been arranged at the back seat for him. The man known as the Golden Voice of Africa on account of his oratorical gifts flipped through the newspapers. The first was The Daily Express. Then the West African Pilot and Daily Times before he picked up the government mouth piece, the Morning Post.
What he usually did was scan the headlines first for references to him, the Sarduana or their party, the NDP. There was always a digest waiting for him at the Cabinet office but he was a man who wanted to see things for himself. Most of the news was on the Commonwealth conference.
 The drive usually took no more than 3 minutes except there was an obstruction which was rare.
The above reconstruction is important in showing how well the city of Lagos was planned by the Colonialists.
Lagos was the capital and seat of government until the capital of Nigeria was moved to Abuja by the Babangida administration in the 80s.
But what many may not recognize is that the capital territory did not begin at Berger as we now know it.
Lagos as capital city began from Moshalashi, the area where Fela Ransome Kuti built his Kalakuta Republic, right next to Abalti Barracks where if you turn left, the road will lead you to Mushin and if you turn right it takes you to Jibowu and then Yaba or Sabo. But if you don’t get off the Western Avenue bridge it will take you to Ikorodu Road.
The Federal Capital Territory began from there and went all the way to the island, meaning the Action Group controlled Western Region terminated just before Ojuelegba. . .
Now, let’s retrace our steps to the Prime Minister’s residence and ride along his route to the office. Before he got to his office, he would have to drive past the National Assembly complex. Today, that complex sits to the far right of the TBS. Lack of care and the typical Nigerian cavalier attitude has left it to rot.
The Prime Minister’s office sat on the same stretch as the Lagos High Court, the Court of Appeal and Kings College.  The High Court was where Awolowo and his Action Group co-accused were tried for treasonable felony.
The Supreme court, by some quirk, was located afar off on Broad street, next to Saint Anna’s court which also served as the registry.
This was the sum of the colonial government in terms of administrative offices except for the prison. Now, the prison was, prior to the coming of the towering skyscrapers that changed the Lagos skyline -Western House and Investment House and Lapal Houses and the federal government built Independence House – the biggest structure on the island. It encompassed by New York terms, a block on each side. It was mammoth.
Now, right before Western House was built, the tallest building was called the Six Storey Building. It was six stories high and now sits dilapidated and unused right behind the prisons, on Brook street, the road linking Broad street with Campbell street.
For leisure, the colonialist had the Island Club which was adjacent to the Prime Minister’s residence and shared a fence with Randle Hall. The Public baths were right opposite the Museum. The baths, public swimming pools, are gone now replaced by the Lagos state fire service.
Right next to the public baths was the Love Garden. It is gone too, replaced by the MUSON Centre.
A short walk down and you would come to the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club. It was Europeans Only and affronted well-to-do Lagosians had set up the Yoruba Tennis Club to rival it.
Drive down and make a left and you would find the Dental hospital right next to the Dental training school. Western House would be on your right.  Further down and on your left would be the Pathology department were autopsies were carried out and behind it was the Mortuary. A little upfront was the Maternity and across from it was the School of Midwifery. Everything had been planned out to exact detail.
The 3 Arms of government were in a horseshoe shaped schematic and it was into this horseshoe that Shonibare and his NIPC cohorts decided to insinuate their huge structures as they set about turning colonial Lagos into a modern Central Business District complete with shopping malls and glittering office complexes that towered high into the sky.
For an area that had been so well planned by the colonialists, one shudders to contemplate the battle Shonibare and the NIPC fought to situate the Western House, two houses away from the prisons, the same prison where all the founding fathers; Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo had called home at some point.
Now, before Western House was built, the prison was the biggest structure in Lagos Island in terms of sheer girth and land mass. It was a perfect square cutting one block each across Broad Street, Campbell Street, Brook Street and Hospital Road.
What Shonibare and the NIPC did was replicate the same girth and land mass before shooting up, 18 stories into the sky. Western House became not just a finger in the eye, it was a huge towering structure looking down on the colonial government’s seat of power.
The Western House done, they built Investment House and then Lapal House. Lapal House occupies an unusual position, like a gate keeper of sorts, sitting as it does at the tail end of the Lagos Island where the Island segues into Obalende as it crosses the Coastal road and skips over the McGregor canal.
So, the NIPC had in effect, insinuated itself into the seat of power by not just taking over space on the ground, it had also set itself as a towering and hulking presence that kept an eye over all it surveyed. So, the NIPC in effect did not just have Land rights, they also had Air rights right there in the seat of power.
It might not seem like much now at a time when anyone with the money can purchase real estate where ever his heart desires but back in colonial times, there were places and houses that African men, no matter how rich, could not buy.
So, it is a testament to their acumen and tenacity that Shonibare and his NIPC team could buy land and build skyscrapers in an area where all was flat and even. And they did not just build skyscrapers, they built magnificent edifices that endure to this day.
Western House was a wonder to behold when it opened in 1958. It was the first modern building that opened up on to two different streets. From the Broad Street end you walked up a flight of 22 steps into a reception area and then a mall. The most glittering shop then was the Glendora Bookshop. Then there was the coffee shop where the young Lagos elite and upwardly mobile came for dates.
Western House was different because it was a prime address that housed a shopping mall, a huge office complex and residential quarters at the top. There had been simply nothing like it before Shonibare and the NIPC made it happen. That building signalled the dawn of a modern Central Business District and they had done it without a template to follow. It was all novel. They had become the builders of modern Nigeria.
When Western House opened it attracted the cream of corporate Nigeria. Every company worth its salt and in need of a tony office address came by. In contemporary Lagos, the nearest example would be Milliners Tower, the former NNPC building on Kingsway Road, Ikoyi which at its peak after reconstruction and renovation was home to Samsung, Google, GE, Etisalat and AMCON amongst others.
With Western House done, they would replicate what they had done with Investment House and then Lapal House. Lapal house was a more difficult and long drawn out transaction which involved both the French and the British and it is in highlighting the path to its being built that Shonibare and the NIPC decided to call it LAPAL house an acronym for the process that led to its emergence.
The negotiations began in Lagos, Continued in Paris and were concluded in London – LAPAL.