Tinubu Square
Tinubu Square in 2014
Type	Public square
Location	Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria
Created	1960
Operated by	Lagos State Government
Status	Open year-round

Tinubu Square, formerly Independence Square, is an open space landmark located in Broad Street, Lagos Island, Lagos State, Nigeria named after the Yoruba slave trader, merchant, and aristocrat Madam Efunroye Tinubu.^[1][2] It was formerly called Ita Tinubu^[3][4] before it was named Independence Square by leaders of the First Nigerian Republic after Nigerian independence and subsequently Tinubu Square.^[5]

According to a historian, it was the location of the first court of justice which was replaced in 1918 by the Supreme Court or the Court of Assizes, which was a magnificent structure.^[6] The Square was the melting point of different cultures, a place where the indigenous Lagosians, those of Brazilian extract and the colonial administration met.^[6]

The square is iron-fenced with two flowing fountains, flowers and tropical trees in it. It also contains a life-size statue of Madam Tinubu on a cenotaph.^[5] The size of the square is 2,000 square meters.^[6] The square was last remodeled in 2017 by the Lagos state government.^[7]

The Tinubu Square is a serene location, with efforts being made by the operation "Keep Lagos Clean" to make the square a place for tourism and center of attraction.^{[8] [9]}

In 2021 and 2022, two art exhibition installations were realised at Tinubu Square in an international collaboration between various players from the arts and culture sector. The first exhibition presented film stills by Stephen Goldblatt, which were taken in 1970 in Nigeria during the film production Things Fall Apart and were found by chance in Berlin almost fifty years later. The second exhibition showed photographs taken by German photographer Nina Fischer-Stephan in various parts of Nigeria in the 1960s, which were presented to the public for the first time. During the second project, Lagos based contemporary artist Mallam Mudi Yahaya created the short documentary Nina Fischer-Stephan's Respectful Gaze,^[10] which premiered at the African Film Festival in New York. Yahaya had played a key role in the development of this art project and, among other things, had written the extensive captions.

»It's a terrific show. Fischer-Stephan's images of street life and architecture in and around the square nearly sixty years ago are illuminating...These passers-by, market workers and petty traders, people you would never find visiting a gallery, were passionately engaged with it yesterday even as the show was being installed.« Biyi Bandele ^[11]

»The archival pictures, dredged from the estate of Nina Fischer-Stephan, hold Lagos in complete awe and a tinge of heartbreak when contemplating the past and present day Nigeria at the on-going outdoor exhibition by Modern Art Film Archive.« Yinka Olatunbosun ^[12]

6°27′14″N 3°23′22″E / 6.4538°N 3.3894°E / 6.4538; 3.3894

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