Iya Eba's Legacy
I photographed Iya Eba’s restaurant on Berkeley Street in Onikan, Lagos, as part of a story written by Ayo Oladipupo about street food culture and the quiet legacies that sustain the city. Through my images, I focused on Iya Eba as more than a buka: a living archive of Lagos life, where food, community, and memory intersect in a city that is constantly changing. The photographs document the rhythm of Berkeley Street from day to night, the kitchen’s choreography, and the presence of Alhaja Fausat Adebayo, whose decades of work have turned a small food stall into a neighbourhood institution. I was interested in the contrast between “Old Lagos” and the fast, polished Lagos rising around it: the way places like Iya Eba continue to hold space for familiarity, affordability, and shared social life. This project is a visual study of everyday Lagos: the workers who keep the city fed, the customers who return daily, and a street that resists being erased by the pace of development. While the story is about food, my photographs aim to show something broader: how ordinary places become cultural anchors in a city that “no send anybody,” yet is deeply shaped by those who quietly keep it running.
