Photo of the Week: Old Colonial Secretariat Lagos – Then and Now

Photo of the Week takes a look at the Colonial Secretariat in Lagos. A complex that occupies about two acres, perched on the edge of Lagos Island on Marina Road, next to the General Hospital and 200 hundred meters from the Governor General’s residence. It served as the administrative headquarters for the British colonial government in Nigeria.

The building was constructed in the early 1900s, showcasing British colonial architectural style. It features grand facades, large windows, twin towers which served as a guarded front for security watch overlooking the entire building and a good portion of its Lagos Island environs and expansive interiors designed to project the power and permanence of British rule.

The Secretariat was the center of British colonial administration, where key decisions regarding the governance of Nigeria were made. It housed offices for the Governor and other high-ranking officials who oversaw various aspects of colonial administration, including finance, health, and public works.

The location of the secretariat was significant as it was formerly the administrative seat of Lagos colony and subsequently, the capital of the Southern Protectorate of Nigeria (1906).

Once called the Central Secretary’s Office, the secretariat, was designed and constructed by the Public Works Department (PWD), which was responsible for many of the colonial administrative buildings in the country.

The Old Secretariat Building continued to function as an administrative building long after Nigeria’s independence in 1960. It became the headquarters of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Justice and was made a zonal office for the Federal Ministry of Justice when Nigeria’s capital was moved to Abuja in 1991.

Today, it houses the National Secretariat for the Nigerian Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS). It is one of the settings of Biyi Bandele’s last historical movie, Elesin Oba based on drama The Death of the King’s Horsemen, by Wole Soyinka

The Colonial Secretariat was declared a national monument by the National Commission of Museum and Monuments NCMM on August 1982.