BROJOL BLOG'S

Unlike Takwa Bay, Lekki Beach and some organised beaches in Lagos, Kuramo can best be described as rugged while playing host to the good, the bad and the ugly.

“In Kuramo, you will see doctors, lawyers, bankers, business people, police, soldiers, students, drug addicts, urchins, orphans, destitutes, prostitutes, bus conductor and criminals. In fact, just about every kind of person comes here to relax.

“I personally have been a fan of Kuramo for at least three years and I can assure you there are no dull moments here.

 Kuramo is home to some people as they have no other placee to go to. “Some of the boys here usually go out in the day to hustle and return at night to hang out till daybreak because, they cannot afford to pay for accommodation, some boys even  live on the beach with some prostitutes.

“Night and day, you would find one form of activity or the other in Kuramo,” it was gathered. Though in the day, the patronage is skeletal, but the nights often present a gamut of club activities. A walk around the beach at night revealed a lot. Besides call girls who hang around the beach, some with only pants and bra and several other provocative dresses to get men hooked to their game, a long queue of bar shops permeates the beach. At the other side are open bars overlooking the Atlantic ocean. Drinks and marijuana are being sold freely. Stick meats, kebab (suya), peppered chicken and assorted pepper soup are some of the delicacies consumed with beer and other strong spirits.

Some of the bars play host to dancers who dance to all genres of music..

“I ran away from my uncle’s place because he was maltreating me,” he said with pain in his voice, while doodling on a drawing sheet. “I was picked up by someone who took me to the remand home in Akure. I was at the Child Lifeline for some years,” he said.

Today, Ogunkunle is a JSS 1 student in one of the schools in Ikorodu. He is good at painting and one of his works won a prize in his school.

Weekly Trust discovered that every child on the street tries to work for survival as a result, the hazards they become exposed to remain unquantifiable. Looking at the boys roaming the streets usually give many people the impression that they’re useless.

Ogunkunle has demonstrated that if they’re given a home, taught trades or sent to school, they would be transformed into productive beings.

Boys like Gbenga walk the streets daily in search of what to eat or do to earn a living at their tender age. These destitutes are exposed to harsh weather conditions, malnutrition and those who hawk on the streets are sometimes knocked down by fast-moving vehicles. Some of them who reside at Kuramo, smoke, drink and prostitute. Obviously, these are habits they learnt from the night life common at the beach.

The story of 32-year-old Benson Adeniyi who has been living at Kuramo Beach since his teenage years is instructive. He told Weekly Trust that he abandoned his job as a fraudster to join the growing number of boys at Kuramo. “I used to live in Ghana and Lome until I returned to Nigeria a few years ago. I was engaged in fraud while in Ghana. My clients were mainly white people,” he explained in near perfect English.

His command of English is quite surprising because he said he picked it from the streets. Though he still resides at Kuramo, Adeniyi claimed he has turned a new leaf and hopes for a better tomorrow. He is now into Afro gospel music and plans to release his album soon.

At the beach also, old men and women are not left out of the fray. At the entrance are some of them displaying bread, detergents, soap, herbs and all kinds of dry gin. “We make brisk business here,” one Hajiya Toyin proudly stated. Narrating further, she said, “My child takes some of the wares and hawks around the bars and Kuramo Beach. Sales are good. Sometimes, we sleep here.”

How can she raise children in that kind of environment considering the negative influences they could be exposed to? She simply said, “Don’t disturb me. I am attending to my customers. Na your children?” Several such cases abound in Kuramo. Government officials and other well placed individuals who relax there do not seem to see anything wrong in that. Walking further around the beach in the night, our reporters noticed the ramshackle brothels where night activities by the beachgoers and ‘residents’ are gorier. Girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were beckoning at men for sex for as low as N200.

The guide, Kenny, whom Weekly Trust engaged to take them round for safety reasons, explained thus: “With N500, they will take you into their room. If you can’t afford that, then with N200, you can sleep with them in the open.” When he noticed the startled looks on the faces of these reporters, he asked, “Are you surprised?” Looking indifferently at us, he trekked on for some 50 yards and pointed at some people having sex there.

“It’s not only the prostitutes who do this; even people who come here with girls outside of Kuramo do it. But we like the fun. It is a free world,” he said with a grin. As we walked back, these reporters noticed other people freely smoking marijuana, even mobile police officers in uniforms with their rifles hanging on their arms were there drinking.

In front of one of the makeshift chalets, a child was crying. The little girl who could not have been more than two years old sat there crying in the middle of the night. When Weekly Trust enquired about the mother’s whereabouts through one of the ladies there, she retorted angrily, “That is not your problem. The mother is out there selling market,” and she thereafter, angrily pursued the baby back into the room.

Further investigations revealed that the girl’s mother had her in the course of the trade. One thing which should really bother the society and the authorities especially those in the health sector is, how prostitutes still have unprotected sex with several people against the high probability of contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS. Worrisome also is the fact that married men and women are involved in this ugly trend.

Source: weekly trust