A British Consul called McCrosky, aka Apongbon, created the Marina at Lagos in 1859 as a public space and traffic thoroughfare, eventually it would boast of a tramway along with electric lights.
I can remember in 1959, taking the children for a walk along it, feeling the strong southwesterly breeze on my face while listening to the palm fronds crackling and the lagoon waves lapping the shore.
In the 1970s the land was reclaimed and the waterfront moved further out to make way for the expressways and a massive car park from where you could comfortably walk into the centre of the Island leaving your car behind. This is just what our crowded little island needed to “pedestrianise” its growing commercial area.
But almost immediately, some of the spaces were taken over by some of the larger office blocks, no doubt at a price, to make good the car parking provision which should have been, by law, accommodated on their sites. I can remember that the Union Bank was supposed to have several basements for parking but the then the MD lost faith in his architect, Laiye Balogun, and took over the public parking space opposite his massive office. Including that needed for Glover Hall.
Later, structures started to ease out the cars, first a few petrol stations then a soft drinks depot, while government found it a convenient place to dump broken down vehicles, empty containers and sundry other discarded items. Steadily over time what was a fine public parking space was turned into a filthy dust hole.
Then our excellent and zealous governor got to work with some landscape contractors and started to build a linear park with footpaths, palm trees and grassed areas, was this indeed, at last, ‘the Venice of West Africa’ about which I wrote in the 1950s? Here was a substitute for the ‘Love Garden’ taken over by Muson and the Onikan football ground. An open space for local residents to enjoy together with those others who could find a car park! Really?
Well... yes and NO! But tell me, how do you get to it and the toilets built there? Unfortunately to reach it across the expressway is impossible, because of the nose to tail traffic all day and the only footbridge is at the ferry station. So it is becoming a decorative no-man’s land.
As if this wasn’t a problem, near the ferry station the scheme appears to have run out of steam or money. The area reserved for bus parking and lifting passengers is already looking abandoned with building materials lying around and ironically, it is as untidy as the Oshodi interchange of yesterday. But worse is to be seen as you walk to where the overhead roadway turns to drop into Apongbon Street.
Opposite, right on the waterfront is a ship-breaking yard that seems to have escaped the hawk eyes of Minister Dora, not to speak of our excellent Governor. Even one large vessel has turned turtle near to the ugly dry dock, which has been an eyesore there for some years now.
No doubt either the Ports Authority or the Inland Waterways Department will claim responsibility for this outrage.
Just as ‘Apongbon’ was instrumental in branding Lagos 150 years ago, so we today must not forget that the process starts with small things. Lagos, and the Lagosians that own it, are very much the showcase of Nigeria. No organisation should stand in the way of whatever efforts are made to clean it up. It is to be hoped that His Excellency will act today to open negotiations with the powers that be to successfully complete his Marina initiative.
Prof. John Godwin is Baakole of Owu Abeokuta
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