A closer look unveils the famous “Solider Idunmota Cenotaph” in the middle of the photo

Date: 01/01/1963

Time: 12:18 Noon 

Credit: UN Photo/Prasad Ranganath

“The first object in founding a new Colony is to find a revenue from and provide police protection for, the lieges; in short to work a government.

Lagos has been the ideal Colony from the Downing Street point of view, self-supporting and self-protecting.

For the first few years after the cessions there was a Parliamentary grant of € 2,000 which dropped in 1863 t0 €1,000 and the ceased. In 1874 $2,000 was borrowed from the Imperial Government owing to financial embarrassment caused by the closing of roads and consequent stoppage of trade. 

This loan was repaid two years afterwards. So constant was the surplus of revenue over expenditure that in 1896, before it was necessary to raise money by loan for the large capital expenditure required for bridges and the railway, there was a credit balance of over €50,000, invested in England”

Source: Page 41- Nigerian under British Rule by Sir William M.N Geary /ASIRI Magazine 2025

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