Hey,

Happy weekend.

Most Nigerians born in the last century remember watching Sarafina!, the powerful 1992 musical film that captured the spirit of resistance during South Africa's apartheid era. Those of us who did, remember the protest march, the songs, the fists raised in defiance, the schoolchildren enveloped in a cloud of tear gas.

Well, Sarafina! happened right here in Lagos, at the Bristol Hotel on Martin Street, Ikoyi. Or perhaps, it didn't happen, thanks to courageous Nigerians.

In 1947, a distinguished Black West Indies colonial official was denied accommodation at Bristol Hotel despite his government reservation. The reason given by the hotel was that he was Black and the hotel served only Whites.

The news spread and in a rage, young Lagosians stormed the hotel and vandalized it. The Nigerian press amplified the outrage into a nationwide awakening. And when Alfred Rewane led a peaceful sit-in at the hotel the following year, colonial authorities caved to the pressure and banned racial discrimination in public facilities across Nigeria.

This was Nigeria's almost-apartheid moment and we beat it back. A year later and South Africa would formally institutionalize apartheid. While Soweto's children would spend decades fighting for basic human dignity, Nigerian youth had already forced their colonial masters to retreat from institutionalized racism.

More than seventy years later, in October 2020, young Nigerians flooded the streets again, this time under the banner of #EndSARS. Tear gas and bullets returned. But once again, the youth of Nigeria refused to be silent. The same spirit that ignited the Bristol Hotel protests resurfaced and demanded a nation that does not turn against its own.

Today, we invite you to read the story of how a hotel reservation denial in 1947 became the match that lit a fire under colonial racism in Nigeria, and how that fire ultimately prevented our country from following South Africa down apartheid's dark path.

It's a story most Nigerians have never heard, yet it certainly is one of the most consequential moments in our nation's history.

Enjoy!

The SimplVest Team.

The Ikoyi Incident that Helped Avert the Rise of Apartheid in Nigeria

Colonial Nigeria was marked by its own policies of racial segregation. Ikoyi was an epitome of this: it was designated as “European reservations” and reserved for white officials and businessmen. Nigerians were not allowed to live there. The MacGregor Canal was built, in part, to separate Ikoyi from the rest of Lagos. Public facilities and hotels were also racially segregated, with native Nigerians unable to access or use them.

However, a seemingly minor incident happened at Bristol Hotel, Ikoyi, in 1947. It would spark a protest movement that nipped this evil in the bud and altered the course of Nigerian history.

👉 Full Story here: The Ikoyi Incident that Helped Avert the Rise of Apartheid in Nigeria

Till Wednesday,

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