Society
Real Reasons Fun Lovers Can’t Access Many Beaches This Festive Period
has resulted in the “swallowing up’ of beaches here and there.
The festive season has magnified the reality that – the beaches are directly reduced.
Fun lovers now have access to very limited options of what is considered a huge value-adder to the holiday season.
Two reasons have been adduced for this development.
The most prominent is man-made and is largely defined as the handiwork of illegal dredgers.
Illegal dredgers are persons who indiscriminately source sand from the waters either to fraudulently reclaim land or stockpile sand for sale.
“It is natural for wherever has been dredged to have to be compensated for. What happens is that nature sends out water to search for sand to compensate for what has been dredged and the very first point of call is the beaches” Lagos State Commissioner for Waterfront Infrastructure Development, Dayo Alebiosu explains how the activities of the illegal dredgers is impacting on the beloved areas of fun lovers.
The implication is that in taking sand from beaches to fill the dredged portions, water claims more land on the shoreline.
“I have reports showing that at a point in time, the water to the shore was over a kilometre away, now it is under a hundred metres away, It is close in some areas under 50 metres.” Alebiosu provided a deeper glimpse into the gravity of the operations of the people getting sand on inter and intra-state waters without abiding by rules and regulations safeguarding the environment.
Checks revealed that in increasing cases, the development has resulted in the “swallowing up’ of beaches here and there.
“If you go to a place called Okunde which is along the Oniru axis you will see that – because of the constant dredging, indiscriminate dredging” Alebiosu who has declared war against the activities of illegal dredgers cited an example.
Checks revealed the famous Oniru Beach is one of those affected by the nefarious operations.
The Commissioner for Waterfront Infrastructure Development who shared his thoughts as a guest on Channels Television identified the other factor contributing to reducing number of beaches as an ” imbalance in coastal dynamics such as wind, currents” defined as part of climate change.
He, however, insisted that “the man-made issue”, represented by the actions of the illegal dredgers, “is causing a lot of problems.”
