Ogu people

The Gun people, mistakenly rendered Ogũ, Ogun or Egun, is an ethnic group principally found in Ouémé Department in the southeast of the Republic of Benin, and in Lagos and Ogun State regions of southwestern Nigeria. They speak the Gun language. The Gun account for about 15% of the indigenous population of Lagos State^[1], and 6% of the total population of the Republic of Benin, although their parental ethnic group Fon is the majority in Benin Republic.

The Gun are Gbe speaking people who were settlers in the old Dahomey presently known as Republic of Benin. Oral history has it that the Gun people are an offshoot of the Fon people who migrated from Kingdom of Allada in the Republic of Benin. According to Olaide-Mesewaku, A.B., a historian; some of them migrated to Badagry as early as the 15th century.

The Ogu people are found in Porto-Novo, capital city of Benin Republic, in Badagry, in the Yewa, in Ipokia region of Ogun State and in Makoko in Lagos. Since their environment is surrounded by water, majority of Gun people are into fishing, coconut processing and salt production, while some are involved in trading and farming.^[2] The Gun people strongly believe in their traditions despite most of them being followers of other religions, they are seen worshipping a night watcher spirit called Zangbeto.^[3] (A Nightman).

The Gun people share similarities with other Gbe people and Yorubas as during the C17-18th the Dahomey Empire was under the Oyo Empire rule, thus the strengthen relationship between both ethnicities.

• J. A. Fiberesima (1990). Okrika: In Search of an Ancestry. Evans Brothers. ISBN 978-978-167-450-1.
• A. Babatunde Olaide-Mesewaku; Babatunde A. Olaide-Mesewaku (2001). Badagry district, 1863-1999. John West Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-978-163-090-3.
• Akinjide Osuntokun (1987). History of the Peoples of Lagos State. Lantern Books. ISBN 978-978-2281-48-7.