With Florence Amagiya

A ten year old boy runs towards you asking if he can be of any help and you wonder what he is doing awake at 12 am? And before you know it other children come your way including adults pointing at makeshift spots they think you would like to go to. While you are drawn from every direction, a girl not more than fifteen years of age comes to tell you that you can be entertained by her or her friends for the right price. These are a few of the happenings on Kuramo beach on some nights.

Despite the face- lift of Lagos state and it’s Islands, It can be said that Kuramo beach has not changed much. There are places to visit when you want to unwind, meet people and even rub minds with these people and while at it you spend your money on a cold bottle of beer and the works. There are also places not to be at night. A beach like Kuramo is no such place to visit ordinarily, except you know what you are there for. This is so because life at Kuramo beach is at its extreme at night. Extreme in the sense that everybody you meet doing one trade or the other live life to the extreme as though they are in a jungle and the day’s business begins from dusk to dawn. There you will even meet children of tender age doing things and living life in a way that will sadden you.

A night at Kuramo beach is an experience that is not easily erased from the memory.  It is an experience not because of the buzz, music, dance, fight and the other attraction, but because of the children around who are suppose to be in their beds at that time of the night; they are awake and working for money.  The stricking thing is that they seem not to have anywhere to go to. It is also obvious that nobody is waiting for them and that what they are doing is fun to them. These children constitute the dancers, the ‘call girls’, the gangs smoking weed, while gambling and so much more. Although, not all of them smoke like the adults counterparts, but how long will this trend last?

At other spots on the beach, you see children in rows and groups sleeping, covering their bodies from cold from the sea as though they were home and on their beds. These are some of the children you see begging money while you drive about the Town. They are the ones who pick pockets and the one who pretend to clean your windscreen just for a token and when that token is not given, they become violent. They ones are still decent enough to know that at night time though very late, one should be on his or her bed resting and since they don’t have homes to go to, the beach becomes home. It is spectacular to see how these children run away from their beds of water when the tide of the sea comes rushing at them on the shore.

The ones who see themselves as old enough, although still in the early teens would not go to bed because they want to make extra money. They are the girls who come to you if you are a single guy or the guys who come to you like mercantile agents waiting to get you whatever you want and need at that time of the night.
The girls at this tender age are dressed like adults with make-ups and wigs doing jobs to mar their womanhood in short time spots on the beach. One such case is a teenage girl of thirteen who has being living on the beach since she was nine and she has three children to show for it. In Kuramo beach, you do not need to go to a chalet to have it done to you. The open beach is as good as anywhere. And getting weed or whatever substance you need at that time of the night is just about your money.

However, the disheartening thing about the whole activities in this place is the fact that that under- aged girls are involved in the illicit sex trade and drugs and they are doing it openly. Some of these girls sit on their own to entertain themselves while waiting for prospective customers. Some of them after taking bottles of drinks walk around looking for clients that will buy them more drinks and won’t take them out of the beach, but will take them to the chalets built on the beach by the makeshifts beer parlour owners. Some of the guys and girls come from far and near to carry their nefarious activities in Kuramo beach, while others who do not have where to go to remain in the beach after the sales of their products.‘