A Visit to Elegushi Beach, Lagos, Nigeria. Ulog Entry (4)

Some hours ago, I was at the Elegushi beach in Lagos, Nigeria. I was there in the company of two other colleagues. We had gone there to make some enquiries concerning a picnic we were planning towards next month.

We arrived Elegushi beach at about 11.00am, having spent a few hours in the chaotic, sweaty gridlock encountered on the fringe of the Lagos mainland.

A Short Walk Around the Beach

As soon as my two colleagues and I alighted from our truck, we took a short walk round the beach. Our mission was simple, to look out for a comfortable cabana where we could hold the forthcoming picnic.

It was sunny day, the sun peeping fearlessly from the curtains of the sky as we walked on the welcoming sand of the beach. The beach was not as busy as I had expected. When I enquired, my colleagues told me that the bustle usually begins in the evenings.

Picture of some boys playing football at the beach

We Found a Cool Cabana

We soon found a splendid cabana, large enough to accommodate a hundred persons, on the fringe of the beach. At once, we opened a negotiation with the proprietor of the cabana who, after much persuasion, agreed to a venue fee of $80. The proprietor also agreed that we could come to the cabana with our food and drinks. We thanked him greatly, for it was not the norm.

I took this picture inside the cabana

When we had concluded the negotiations, we settled down to some bottles of cold beer and plates of roasted chicken and goat pepper soup. Afterwards, we got ourselves ready to leave the beach.

A Tale of Two Worlds on the Edge of Elegushi Beach

It chanced that we took a different route while leaving the beach and, for the first time, I saw the shanties on the edge of the beautiful beach. I was shocked. I saw a few women and some shirtless children littering the cramped passages between the bamboo houses. Their living conditions, at the very least, could be described as horrible.

Some women sitting in front of their shanty homes.

However, as we walked past those pitiable shanties, another paradoxical world sprang up before us. It was the world of the affluent, a world resting comfortably, too, on the brest of Elegushi beach. But, unlike its neighbouring world, this new world had splendid fences and tall, beautiful houses. The rich sat comfortably in the comfort of their homes while poverty ravaged their very neighbours.

These children were fetching some buckets of drinking water when I took their photographs.

I would spend the rest of the day thinking about the two paradoxical worlds on the edge of the Elegushi beach, while I hoped that the children born in those shanties would one day live above poverty and misery.

*The affluent houses standing on the edge of the Elegushi beach.

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