Lagos in Motion: The Changing Landscape of Ikoyi

Lagos in Motion: The Changing Landscape of Ikoyi

Thursday afternoon on October 27, 2022.

On Alfred Rewane Road (formerly Kingsway Road) in Ikoyi on Lagos Island, Nigeria.

Microsoft office building is the new  skyscraper in the background. 

I have to include the changing landscape of Ikoyi in the final phase of my "Lagos in Motion" documentary film I started in 2016 with more than 40 hours footage so far. The old famous Ikoyi Hotel has been turned to a residential building beside the Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel. 

I passed by my Alma Mater, the famous St. Gregory's College along St. Gregory's College Road to Awolowo Road to Falomo to Glover Road and saw how Ikoyi has changed since my childhood in Obalende. I went to famous Jazz Hole on Awolowo Road and sat down to chat with my old boy, Olakunle Tejuoso, the founder to discuss arts, literature, music and politics of the coming 2023 presidential election with Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) and the political momentum of his "Obidients" movement and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the national ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC).

Olakunle Tejuoso's family owns the famous Glendora Bookshops in Nigeria where the first copies of my book, "Bye, Bye Mugabe" sold out in 2008 before I withdrew it, because of 21 typographical errors and threw the remaining hundreds of copies away. Olakunle is the author of

"Lagos - A City At Work (The Glendora Lagos Project) and the beautiful and colourful photo book, "ABEOKUTA". 

"You should do a new book on Lagos," I said. 

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

Screen Naija YouTube Channel

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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has built a mosque

Olusegun Obasanjo is an enigmatic politician


Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has built a mosque beside his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta. The former president has already built a 1000 seater church, Chapel of Christ the Glorious King within the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL).

According Afis Oladosu of the Friday Worship column on Islam in The Guardian of Nigeria, the news was broken by an elder in a mosque where he observed the Jumuat service last Friday in Lagos.
“Don’t ever say a man is a disbeliever in Allah. Obasanjo has built a mosque. I attended the opening ceremony together with some Moslem scholars from Ilorin!” The elder said.
Afis said the listeners were shocked and wondered why Obasanjo was doing so when he is not a Moslem.
“Since when did Obasanjo become a Christian philanthropist?”
“What is wrong in the donation of a mosque by Obasanjo to the Moslems? Is this mosque not a Greek’s gift? “
“Did Obasanjo say he has become a Moslem? “ Afis asked.
The man shook his head in the negative.
“Did the Moslems ask him to build a mosque for them?”
The man was not sure.

Afis concluded that the mosque built by Obasanjo is “reminiscent of Masjid Dirar, built by Abu ‘Amir - a political mosque, a mosque built to “settle” the Moslem segments of Ogun State, to solace them to forget the injustice being visited on them by Ogun politicians, who appear to have the notion that no Moslem is worthy of being a governor of the state as yet? Is this mosque not a metaphor for the money usually given to the electorates by politicians in order to corner their conscience, corrupt their vision and appropriate their votes?”

And as for those, who put up a mosque by way of harm and disbelief and to disunite the believers and as an outpost for those, who warred against Allah and His Messenger aforetime, they will indeed swear that their intention is nothing but good. Allâh bears witness that they are certainly liars. Never stand you therein... (Quran 9: 107).

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