Da Rocha Water House

The house is reminiscent of Bahia architecture in Brazil. Sitting on two streets – Kakawa and Candido Da Rocha – on Lagos Island, Casa d’Agua (also known as ‘Water House’, so called because water was sold there) is a 19th-century serene architectural masterpiece transported in time and space to the asymmetric chaos of Lagos Island.

Da Rocha’s house, made of brick, faces the ever-bustling Kakawa Street. It is a one-storey building with at least 15 arched windows. From afar, it looks like a cathedral, with the windows of the ground floor fitted with ornamented burglar-proof.

It is one of the very few relics of Nigerian-Brazilian heritage – a reminder of how abducted and enslaved Nigerians taken across the Atlantic beat the odds to return home.