Did you know that, but for the intervention of Ghanaians, the people of Nigeria would have lost their largest city, Lagos, to the British?

According to historian Kweku Darko Ankrah, the people of Nigeria have much to thank Ghana for because it was Ghanaian lawyers who fought to save Lagos when the British took it over for their Queen.

Speaking in an interview on ChannelOne TV, Darko Ankrah said that it was the traditional ruler of Lagos (the Oba of Lagos) at the time, Chief Oluwa, who ran to the then Gold Coast, now Ghana, when the British took over his land.

“The Nigerian Oba of Lagos, whose land had been taken over by the Queen of England… Chief Oluwa, who was the chief of Lagos, came to the Gold Coast to seek advice from the Gold Coasters, who fought against the British… Some of these people joined him in the 1920s, and the case went to the British Privy Council. They won the case, and the land—Lagos land that was for the Queen—reverted back to the Oba of Lagos,” he said.

The historian indicated that Chief Oluwa asked the people of the Gold Coast for help because they were the first people to fight to take back their land from the British, when they passed a law stating that all idle lands belonged to the British monarch.

“When the Land Bill of 1894 was introduced, they turned the Fante Fekuw into the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society as a nationalist vehicle to fight against the Land Bill, which claimed that any land in the Gold Coast that was unoccupied was wasteland and belonged to the Queen of England. The locals protested and said, ‘No, if you see an empty land which is unoccupied, it doesn't mean it's wasteland,’” he said.

He said that the Gold Coasters, who were highly educated, challenged that law until it was abolished by the British government.

“So they contested this, and then the Land Bill was remodelled when Governor Maxwell took over and reintroduced it again in 1897. When he reintroduced it, several people—including Anomor Rena and CJ Bannerman—went to the Gold Coast Legislative Council to argue that it violated the British understanding of native law regarding land ownership. But the government did not listen, so the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society sent a delegation to England to the House of Lords, argued their case, and won against the British government. As a result, the law was abolished,” he said.

The historian added that the people of Ghana did not save only Nigeria, but the entire West Africa, from land seizure by the British, which had been seen in Southern Africa.

“So the idea of land being forcefully seized, as the British did in East Africa and South Africa, could not occur. As a result, in British West Africa, forced seizure of land, as it happened elsewhere, was prevented. The Gold Coast saved the West African sub-region,” he said.

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Watch a video of his remarks below:

Did you know Ghana once played a role in Nigeria reclaiming Lagos?

On today’s Heritage On-Air Series with @benkoku, historian Kweku Darko Ankrah explores the Land Law and how its abolition opened the way for other African countries especially Nigeria to reclaim territories. pic.twitter.com/vDTL9HiO6e

— ChannelOne TV (@Channel1TVGHA) March 12, 2026