I was at Seaside Estate in Badore, Ajah, recently and found myself staring at a view I still struggle to believe.
Somewhere among the thousands of houses stretching across the landscape is a house marked by a red arrow in the short drone footage. That house was ours. More importantly, it was the very first house in what is now Seaside Estate. Twenty-six years ago, when we moved in, there was almost nothing here.
Our relationship with this area actually began a few years earlier. We started visiting in 1994/95 as work commenced on our building project, and those trips became a regular part of our lives long before we eventually moved in by 2000.
Back then, the landscape of Oketiri – Ojuoto was a swampy wilderness teeming with wildlife. Monkeys hopped freely from tree to tree, colorful birds filled the skies, snakes and monitor lizards were common sights.
When my family finally moved into the house, I was in my final year at the university. For several years during the rainy season, floodwaters swallowed the access road for months at a time. The last stretch home—about 500 meters—often had to be done on foot because driving through was simply impossible.
Looking at the estate today, it is difficult to reconcile those memories with what stands before me. Rows upon rows of houses now occupy land that was once marshland and forest. Streets have replaced footpaths. The sounds of wildlife have given way to the rhythm of a thriving community. What was once considered remote has become part of the ever-expanding Lagos metropolis, stretching from Papa Bus Stop deep into Badore before Cooperative Villas and bustling with residents.
One detail that fills me with particular pride is that, together with my aunt, Bimpe Arowolo (formerly Akinsanya), Charles Ebun Amu, Olumide Madariola, Dayo Ajayi-Bembe, Ejeta Otuoniyo, late Victor Okwodu Snr., Mrs Oshodi, Oyeleke, Pat and Chris Omoh, and a handful of other early neighbors, we came together to name the community Seaside Estate. The name was adopted and quickly spread by the Omo oniles and other home owners not present. At the time, it was little more than a clearing in the wilderness. Today, the name belongs to a thriving neighborhood we actually projected, but a few could have imagined back then.
I often wish drones had existed then in the way they do today. Aerial photographs would have captured an extraordinary transformation—from untouched wetland/rain forest to one of the many residential communities that now define the Ajah axis. The contrast would have been almost unbelievable.
Lagos has always been a city in motion, constantly reinventing itself. Yet every now and then, a view like this serves as a reminder of just how dramatic that transformation can be—not over centuries, but within a single generation.
Standing there today, I was reminded that memory is sometimes the only evidence we have of landscapes that no longer exist.
