Eyes of a Lagos Boy Photo of the Week series focuses on Nigeria’s first Magistrate Court, St. Anne’s Court AKA Santa Anna Magistrates’ Court. First opened at Tinubu Square Lagos in 1869.
Seven years later in 1876, according to The Historical Preservation Society of Brazilian Architecture in Lagos another ordinance, the Supreme Court Ordinance set up a Supreme Court for the Colony of Lagos. This was the beginning of the English Law and Order in Colonial Lagos.
In the collage – top photo (Then) Photographer unknown. Photo below (Now) by Eyes of a Lagos Boy, taken from the same spot as the earlier photographer 87 years later.
An older structure made way for the building in this rephotograph, constructed in 1925 and still stands on the corner of Haffner Street and Broad Street, Lagos Island.
Tragically, in late 1923, three months and 15 days after his wedding day. A young and vibrant lawyer, Moronfolu Abayomi was shot dead outside this court house by a plaintiff, Duro Delphonso who just lost a case to him. Delphonso was a Lagos socialite who curiously had a revolver in his pocket on the way to prison, he turned the gun on himself after killing Abayomi and died a few days later.
In Nigeria, Lagos has the oldest institution of the magistracy dating back to 1862 and continued to be the only jurisdiction that had established Magistrates. It was not until the Cameron Judicial Reforms started in 1931 that Magistrates were introduced to Northern and Southern Nigeria in replacement of the provincial courts.
Bonus Photo:
