Chief Candido Joao da Rocha, a 99-year-old Nigerian businessman, landowner, and creditor, was the owner of the now-closed Bonanza Hotel in Lagos as well as Water House on Kakawa Street, Lagos Island. He was the Lodifi of Ilesa’s chieftaincy title holder. Da Rocha is pictured above, his father Joao Esan is shown on the second image, and Candido is shown on the right as a young child with his mother Angelica. The well-known Water House, constructed by Da Rocha on Lagos Island’s Kakawa Street, is shown in the third slide.
“Nigerian parents often joke that they’re Da Rocha in response to their child’s request for money. The child’s request seems extravagant, it seems. Comparably, peers may make fun of a friend who spends excessively by saying,
“He’s splurging and spending money like Da Rocha.” We now present to you the tale of Candido Da Rocha, the fabled affluent man. Candido Da Rocha was an affluent resident of Lagos. Additionally, he is widely thought to have been the first millionaire in Nigerian and African history.
The beloved Da Rocha was born in 1860 as the son of Joao Esan Da Rocha, a freed slave who came back from Brazil to establish a prosperous business empire.
When Candido, the junior Da Rocha, returned, it was said that he only knew Portuguese and Ilesha. He was the head boy at the well-known CMS Grammar School in Lagos. He was a classmate and friend of the late Herbert Macaulay. His interest in business is vested. It was reported that Candido installed water pipes from Iju to Yaba Ebute Metta, Lagos Island, and other locations where pipe-borne water was in high demand. In the 1920s, he was rumored to have lived in his home and run the Iju water works, which provided water to all of Lagos. It was rumored that Da Rocha was being paid by the colonial administrators for providing water to Lagos State.
His success in the water industry made him so wealthy that the government had to take over the company. His other business is money lending, which he did in partnership with two other wealthy men, Sedu Williams and J. H. Doherty, to form the Lagos Native bank. In addition, he started a restaurant and entered the fishing industry. However, there was a financial issue because he lacked the funds necessary to purchase the goods. The Englishman requested six thousand pounds. Candido da Rocha thus went to the Bank of West-Africa, which is presently called First Bank. He obtained the necessary funds from the bank to buy the gold bars.
Later, he was to sell the gold bars to the neighborhood gold smiths at retail after filing them into gold dust. It was reported that he profited from the sales by an astounding 100%. Candido Da Rocha founded Lagos Native Bank: In 1907, Candido Da Rocha entered the banking industry and became the first African owner of a bank named Lagos Native Bank. He co-founded the Lagos Native Bank with two businessmen, J. H. Doherty and Sedu Williams, but he was its sole operator. Despite being a devout Catholic, research has shown that Candido da Rocha lived alone for the majority of his adult life and was never formally married to a woman in the church, the courts, or convention.
He was reputed to be a challenging man to coexist with. It was known that three women briefly lived with him and bore him children. Alexander Candido da Rocha was the name of the only son born to one of the women, who was originally from the former Gold Coast, which is now part of Ghana. The second woman he had a son with passed away young. After that, he had four daughters: Enitan Salako was the daughter of one woman and the other three were born to the same woman. Louissa Ebun Turton is one of the three daughters; the other daughter, Angelica Folashade, went on to marry Thomas.
“People would come to him, crying, requesting financial assistance; from the balcony, asking how much they needed, he would throw down the money to them,” said Da Rocha’s 90-year-old granddaughter, describing his generosity. Candido Esan Da Rocha is interred at Ikoyi Cemetery after passing away in 1959. Even though there was no Royce Rolls or limousine, Darocha was rumored to travel in an opulent horse-drawn carriage.
Regarding his grandfather’s wealth, Candido Da Rocha’s granddaughter Angelica Oyediran stated in an interview with The Punch: At that time, Cando Da Rocha was relatively close to the British and the West. He was very disciplined and well-respected. He disliked lying and being dishonest. When my mother moved in to help take care of him, I lived with him in this house for approximately three years. He and I were very close. I loved him, and he loved me back. He taught me a lot of things. Da Rocha gave the British government access to one of his properties, the Bonanza Hotel, during World War II in order to shield a group of Nigerian students attending King’s College who had previously been housed in a boarding house at Racecourse.
Up until the end of the war, the school was housed there. He was close to Herbert Macaulay, among other friends. Da Rocha declined to enter politics. “If you want Da Rocha, you vote for him, and if you want Da Rocha’s money, don’t vote for me,” he said in response to people approaching him after he was nominated to run for office and asking for money to support his campaigning. Da Rocha threatened not to assist Macaulay the third time after he was arrested twice by the British colonial government for speaking out against them. Da Rocha paid (a fine) on Macaulay’s behalf to keep him out of jail.
Da Rocha adhered to the Catholic faith. He had reverence for God. He was a millionaire at the time and possessed enormous wealth. Back then, the affluent used to ship their soiled garments to Britain for laundering. The Olowus, Johnsons, Dohertys, and Da Rochas were the most affluent families. In Nigeria, they did not launder their garments. They sent them abroad to do their washing. Some of them owned everything they could afford, including roughly fifty shirts, fifty vests, and fifty pairs of pants. Candido Da Rocha did not become extraordinarily wealthy by chance, nor did he pilfer other people’s commonwealth. His father Joao Esan Da Rocha was the source of his wealth. Ilesha native Joao Esan Da Rocha was abducted as a slave in 1840, aged 10, and transported to Brazil. Later, while residing in Brazil, Joao Esan wed Angelica Josephina Da Rocha and birthed Candido in Brazil.
Esan and other slaves won their freedom back in 1871, and many of them were able to trace their ancestry to the Yoruba tribe. Esan Da Rocha was one of the returnees who went to Queen Victoria’s envoy in Lagos after departing Brazil to request a place to be resettled. They were granted the area at Obalende that lies between Kam Salem and the Nigerian Central Bank on Broad Street. The Water House was built by Esan Da Rocha on the land that was given to him. Since his return with his Nigerian-born wife and their four children, he has been granted two parcels of land. He also got a parcel of land on what is now Tinubu Street.
Esan made sure his new home was a perfect replica of the one he had in Brazil when building it. His homes are on Lagos Island; the first is on 4 Tinubu Street and the other is on the well-known Water House on Kakawa Street. Esan was interred in Ikoyi Cemetery after passing away at the age of 88. Candido da Rocha assumed leadership of his father’s business empire, which he subsequently grew and united into a financial conglomerate worth millions of pounds, encompassing real estate, banking, agriculture, hotels, and financial investments.
