Adeyemi Johnson Ademowo

The motor park, also known as ‘garage’ in Nigerian parlance, is a terminus where journeys begin and end. It is a public space that shifts between public and private, but mostly an object, privatized sometimes at will, commoditized and a bait to negotiate all sorts of benefits, including socio-political visibility, selling spots ownership, rate collection, cheap/free drinks and sex, etc. Due to its nature, there are unending contestations between, and among, its statutory managers and groups seeking to control it for diverse pecuniary reasons. The study seeks to unpack the processes involved in the appropriation of purposely selected Ibadan urban motorparks, the cultivation of cultic followership by the ‘agberos’ that seek to represent it, the mindset underlying its commodification, as well as other discourses which all coalesce to form sets of values and identities that define the Ibadan motorpark, as a unique space with its culture.