There is a quiet violence happening in our cities. It does not bear arms, nor does it shed blood. Yet it wounds, deeply—chipping away at the soul of communities, rewriting their stories, and replacing ancestral identities with symbols devoid of context or consent. The recent renaming of Ilaje Road in Bariga to ‘King Sunny Adeniyi Road’ is a painful example.
Ilaje Road is not just a name on a street sign. It is a historic marker, a communal compass that points to the roots of a people who have, for centuries, inhabited, developed, and defined the cultural rhythm of Bariga. The Ilaje people, a riverine Yoruba community from the coastal lands of present-day Ondo State, were among the earliest settlers of Bariga. With their canoes, salt-making skills, timber trade, and seafaring acumen, they carved out a thriving enclave known as Ilaje-Bariga—long before ‘development’ found a name for the district.
To rename Ilaje Road, a space so intimately tied to the identity of a people, without consultation or regard for historical truth, is to legitimise cultural erasure. It is to take a community’s memory, wrap it in bureaucracy, and toss it into oblivion.
Let’s be clear: this is not an attack on King Sunny Ade, a legend by every right and a cultural treasure whose contributions to music and nationhood are beyond contest. But honoring one icon must not come at the cost of dishonoring an entire indigenous lineage. If anything, it betrays a worrying tendency in Nigeria—where indigenous identities are sacrificed at the altar of political gestures or celebratory symbolism.
What message do we send to the Ilaje child growing up in Bariga, when the road that speaks their name, the street their great-grandfathers named and walked barefoot, is stripped of its title? We teach them that their stories are disposable, that their history is negotiable, that identity can be edited by political whim.
We must resist this trend. Not because names matter more than development, but because names are where development begins. Names preserve memory. Names assert ownership. Names protect lineage. When names disappear, so too do the people.
Bariga LCDA and Lagos State must revisit this decision. Either reinstate the name Ilaje Road, or adopt a dual heritage format—Ilaje-King Sunny Adeniyi Road—to honor both cultural memory and contemporary acclaim. That is how progressive cities behave: by balancing tradition with innovation, not erasing one for the other.
In defending Ilaje Road, we are not just protecting a street. We are protecting truth. We are safeguarding the soul of a people.
And that fight is always worth it.
Kunle Odusola-Stevenson writes from Lagos.
