$8M For Nigerian Wall Street In 1970s

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]My dad bought a plot of land in Maroko.

[00:00:03]You know Maroko in Nigeria. Um Maroko was just a It's in Lagos. When it's a massive plot of land that wasn't inhabited. And uh he wanted to turn Maroko into Into the Nigerian Wall Street. Into the Nigerian Wall Street. It was a military coup. He had paid 8 million pounds for Maroko at the time. And the government came >> of money. Yeah. We're talking in the '70s.

[00:00:27]>> And the military took over.

[00:00:28]>> Yeah, the military took over. That was So this is around that time. So your father buys the >> Maroko before the before the military coup. Okay. And then the military takes over.

[00:00:37]Um the coup happens. Maroko gets taken.

[00:00:41]Um but when democracy was reinstated, when the government came back into its its proper state, that's when essentially my dad went to the the federal government and said, "Hey, I'd like Maroko back." And the federal government said, "No, we cannot give you Maroko back. We won't give you Maroko back." There was a lot of concern around another coup, people having too much power, and they didn't want my dad to have that specific plot of land back for whatever reason. Out of out of fear, I believe, in retrospect.

[00:01:11]>> it was a government thing. I said, "Watch this, bitch." It's always the government.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, man. Yeah. God. And so um they said "Well, you want your money back? What do you want? We'll give you something else." And so my dad asked for a swamp.

[00:01:24]What was at the time an absolute swamp.

[00:01:26]It was a dump. It's right right in Lagos.

[00:01:30]>> Around Lekki and that area.

[00:01:31]>> Okay. I was just right there. I know exactly what you're talking about.

[00:01:34]>> Yeah. And so um they said, "Okay.

[00:01:37]What are you going to do with it?" He said, "Don't worry about it. Right.

[00:01:40]>> That'll be my compensation." And he had the foresight to hire Dutch engineers and you know to work on that concept of dredging the foreshore in order to create that create what we now know as Banana Island, but it was known as Lagoon City.

[00:01:53]>> The Banana Island.

[00:01:54]>> The Banana Island. That's your dad.

[00:01:56]>> My dad is the engineer and an architect up in Ireland. We have all the documentation. We have all of the architecture plans.