Black Lives Matter: Lagos Assembly Calls For Renaming Of Sites, Monuments Named After Colonial Masters

Lagos State House of Assembly has called on the governor of the State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu to issue an order for the removal of all vestiges of slave trade or colonialism superiority in the state.

It also called for the renaming of all sites and monuments that have been named after colonial masters.

The motion was moved by the Deputy Majority Leader, Mr. Noheem Adams representing Eti-Osa constituency 01 at the plenary invoking the Prevention Law, 2015 as a guide.

The move comes as many American protesters continue to destroy and pull down statues and monuments of slave masters in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.

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In the motion, the lawmaker recalled the gruesome killing of George Floyd, who was killed on May 25 at Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States by a white man named Derek Chauvin, which sparked the BLM protests.

Adams noted that the brutal and callous murder of Floyd triggered worldwide condemnations, demonstrations, and protests against the continued police violence and racism of blacks in US and Europe without provocation.

He stated;

The House is aware that these protests further drew attention to the reality of systematic racism, oppression and domination of blacks by whites in spite of abolition of vexatious slave trade and related activities since the 18th century.

In his reaction to the motion, the Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa directed its clerk, Azeez Sani, to address a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking an Executive Order that all streets named after colonial masters be changed.

The Speaker stressed that name change is because ‘it reminds us of these people that enslaved our people.’

According to Obasa;

Statues are not our history, and that Africans all over the world should give backing to the blacks that are fighting for the rights of blacks

He stated that the intention of the motion is not about deleting history, adding that history could not be changed.

Obasa noted that the kind of treatments meted on George Floyd must be stopped and that the motion is to support protesters who are fighting against racism.

He declared;

The motion is about us, about Africans. We have to tell the world about our own civilisation. The resolve is not broad enough. It is not about Lagos State alone. We have to tell African Union about reparation started by the late Chief M.K.O Abiola.

Contributing to the motion, Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu representing Eti-Osa Constituency 2, opined that any history that makes a black person feel inferior should be changed.

He said;

This is a right step in the right direction and we need to change our psyche and history that will not make us feel as human beings. We need to change the narrative that connotes superiority in our history. I want my colleagues to support the motion.

The death of 46-year-old George Floyd sparked outrage and Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and several other countries in the world.

In the US, a statue of George Washington, America’s first president, was recently destroyed by protesters. A World War II monument was also vandalized in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Many other statues and monuments have been defaced and vandalized despite US President Donald Trump signing an executive order to reinforce existing federal law, which criminalizes the destruction of federal monuments.