We all know the story about lord lugard House at Ikot Abasi in Akwa ibom and that was where they amalgamated Nigeria. I can boldly tell you that lord lugard never visited Akwa ibom talkless of amalgamating this country in Nigeria.
After much research on different books and enquiries from Dr Raphael James, I discovered that lord lugard never stayed in Akwa Ibom. He only stayed in Lagos State, lokoja and Kaduna.
Maybe oga lugard visited Akwa Ibom to meet his friend Ralph Moore because from every indication Ralph Moore was the government in charge at that time.
The house they claimed to be lord lugard House and the office of lugard where amalgamation was done was not lord lugard House and office rather it was Ralph Moore Office and House and amalgamation was not done there.
The house you see me standing at the front is Ralph Moore Office and not lord lugard office.
Sorry to [email protected] your heart, lord lugard never amalgamated anything in Nigeria. Rather Nigeria was amalgamated in London 1913 November 22nd and the speech was read on January 1st 1914 on his behalf. During the signing of the papers on Nigeria amalgamation, no Nigerians were there to witness the event.
Already I was told the first amalgamation was done in 1906 by governor Egrton before lugard defined his own theory.
You see this amalgamation and naming Nigeria is going to be a very huge debate in this country. Until Nigerians start seeing the clear picture of some of the stories told by the early men, history will always remain the same without seeing the truth.
Please I want to ask when we Nigeria Commissioners of Tourism or the leader’s of the country start thinking on how to create researcher teams that will mainly focus on History because this amalgamation is a very big project that should be put into serious consideration so that if anybody visit Ikot Abasi will understand the real story behind those structure’s.
Thanks to Dr Raphael James For more clarification.
Africa’s Learn to tell your story……
Dennis Chukwuebuka Okeke is passionate about effecting change through travel writing.
Onye-njem one of AFRICA…….
