Bariga’s educational history cannot be told without mentioning Eva Adelaja and Benaiah Adelaja. Their names belong to a period when education in Lagos was being shaped by mission schools, private initiative, and the steady expansion of public control after independence. What makes their story important is not only the institutions linked to them, but the fact that both were part of a wider effort to build serious educational opportunities in a growing part of Lagos.
Eva Adelaja is remembered as the founder of the girls’ school that began as Girls Secondary Grammar School, Bariga. Her place in the school’s history matters because the institution emerged at a time when access to quality secondary education for girls was still limited by location, family resources, and the uneven spread of formal schooling. In that setting, the establishment of a girls’ secondary school in Bariga was both practical and ambitious. It answered a local need while also reflecting a larger belief that the education of girls could transform families and communities.
The school was founded in 1964, and from the beginning its purpose was clear. It was created as a girls only institution in Bariga, a place that was still developing and did not yet have many of the facilities later associated with urban Lagos. The significance of the school lies not only in the date of its founding, but in the kind of future it imagined. It was meant to give girls a disciplined academic environment and the chance to move into professional and public life with confidence.
Eva Adelaja’s Vision for Girls’ Education
Eva Adelaja is remembered in school history as an educator with a strong commitment to girls’ education. That memory has survived because the institution she helped establish was not simply another name on a list of schools. It became one of the notable girls’ schools associated with Bariga, and its story remained alive through generations of old students and anniversary commemorations.
Her legacy rests on vision more than ceremony. She is remembered for wanting a girls only school in a place where such an institution did not yet exist. That idea carried weight in mid twentieth century Lagos, where families increasingly saw education as the path to social advancement, but where girls still had to overcome structural limits that boys often did not face in the same way. By helping establish a school dedicated to girls, Eva Adelaja placed herself inside an important chapter of Lagos educational history.
Over time, the school she founded became known as Eva Adelaja Girls’ Secondary Grammar School. That later naming reflects how strongly her identity remained attached to the institution. Even without dwelling on ceremonial details, the larger point is clear, her name endured because her role in the school’s founding was deeply remembered.
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Benaiah Adelaja and the Bariga School Landscape
The story becomes even more important when Benaiah Adeleke Adelaja is placed beside Eva Adelaja. He was a major educational figure associated with CMS Grammar School, Lagos, one of the oldest and most important schools in Nigerian history. He served as principal from 1950 to 1970, and during his tenure the school moved in 1958 to its Bariga site.
That move was a major development in the educational history of Lagos. CMS Grammar School had already established its place as a leading institution, and its relocation to Bariga helped strengthen the area’s identity as a serious educational centre. Benaiah Adelaja’s period of leadership is remembered not only for administration, but for growth, physical development, and the building of a stronger institutional base for the school in its new environment.
When his role is considered alongside Eva Adelaja’s work, the connection becomes striking. One Adelaja was helping shape the educational life of boys through leadership at CMS Grammar School, while the other was associated with the founding of a girls’ secondary school in the same broad Bariga setting. Together, their story points to a family legacy closely tied to the educational growth of the district.
Why Bariga Mattered
To understand the importance of their work, it helps to remember what Bariga represented in those years. It was not yet the fully built up urban district people know today. It was still expanding, still absorbing population growth, and still developing the institutions that would define its future. In such a place, schools mattered in a special way. They did not only educate children, they helped shape neighbourhood identity.
A school could bring roads, movement, confidence, and visibility. It could draw families into an area. It could create a sense that a community was moving from the margins into public life. That is part of what makes the history of the Adelajas significant. Their names are tied not only to classrooms and titles, but to a stage in the making of modern Bariga.
The founding of a girls’ school in that setting was especially important. It signalled that girls’ education was not to be treated as secondary or optional. It was to be built deliberately, institutionally, and with permanence in mind.
From Private Initiative to Public Institution
Like many schools of its era, the girls’ school did not remain in the same administrative form forever. It began as a private educational effort, later became grant aided, and then passed fully into Lagos State control in 1974. That transition reflects a wider pattern in post independence Nigeria, where schools founded by private individuals, missions, or communities were increasingly brought under state authority.
This change did not erase the school’s origins. Instead, it added another layer to its history. The institution entered the public system, but its founding memory remained connected to Eva Adelaja. That is why her name continued to carry weight long after the school’s administrative status changed.
The endurance of that memory is part of the school’s importance. Public control altered governance, but it did not remove the story of who first imagined the school and why it was needed.
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A Legacy That Outlived Its Founders
The strongest part of this history is that it does not depend on sentiment alone. It survives because the institutions themselves carried the memory forward. Eva Adelaja remained central to the story of the girls’ school. Benaiah Adelaja remained central to the memory of CMS Grammar School’s Bariga era. Their legacy is therefore both personal and institutional.
For readers today, what stands out is the scale of their impact. They belonged to a generation that saw education as one of the most important tools for shaping society. They did not simply admire schooling from a distance. They helped build it. One helped anchor a major boys’ school in a new location that would become central to its later history. The other helped establish a girls’ school that answered a real local need and gave generations of young women a place to learn, grow, and aspire.
That is why their story remains worth telling. It is a Lagos story, a Bariga story, and an education story. Above all, it is a reminder that institutions do not appear by accident. They are built by people who see what is missing and decide to leave something lasting behind.
Author’s Note
The lasting lesson in this history is that educational change often begins with people who can see further than their own moment. Eva Adelaja saw the need for a girls’ school in Bariga and helped create one, while Benaiah Adelaja shaped the educational strength of Bariga through his leadership at CMS Grammar School. Their story shows that institutions are built through purpose, discipline, and long term vision, and that the impact of such work can continue shaping communities long after the founders are gone.
References
EAGSGS Old Girls Association UK, History
EAGSGS Old Girls Association UK, Home
Business Post Nigeria, Eva Adelaja Girls’ at 60, Family Unveils Ben and Eva Adelaja Prize
Brief History of C. M. S. Grammar School
