It was a mixed bag of feelings as residents of Lagos marked the Sallah on Sunday, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
The inhabitants of Kuramo beach, who on Saturday lost a colleague to an Atlantic Ocean surge with 15 others still missing, battled to salvage their properties and relocate while other Lagosians took to revelry to mark the event.
NAN correspondents, who went round the metropolis, report that a task-force was on hand todemolish shanties left standing after the surge.
Mr Stanley Iyere, Special Assistant on Security, Victoria Island Local Council Development Area, who led the task-force, said the demolition was necessitated by Saturday’s surge.
Iyeresaid that the government would not allow the people to return to Kuramo beach because of the inherent dangers.
However, three of the affected persons, Mrs Folashade Ajayi, Mr Kayode Lawal, and Mrs Amina Sura urged the state government
to ensure that they were appropriately relocated as their livelihood depended on their daily sales from the beach.
Sura, who plies hertrade at the bar beach, said that they were not worried by the ocean surge.
“It is an annual occurrence; we live on the Island and every year the ocean must surge,” she said.
The mother of two noted that the beach was one of the tourists’ centres in the country and urged the government to ensure the protection of lives and properties, especially of people living in the area.
One of the picnickers, Miss Vivian Aluko, an undergraduate, who was at the beach with her friends to mark her birthday, said that she was not deterred by Saturday’s incident.
“Yesterday was my birthday, so I came to celebrate with my friends. I am happy because it coincided with the Sallah celebration when a lot of people are celebrating,” she said.
Aluko appealed to the Federal Government to make the beach safer so that it would continue to attract large patronage.
