Lagos Bar Beach...Sad Story

The Lagos Bar beach was a popular spot in the old days and many baby boomers in Nigeria today remember those times. It was characterized by thatched shelters and a sandy shoreline littered with all manners of shells like most beaches. But I guess what made it popular was its proximity to the highbrow environs of Victoria Island.



My childhood was filled with visits to this once famous beach. Sadly, bar beach has undergone changes that have taken away those childhood memories with them. I believe the global warming phenomena is the major cause.



The pictures speak for themselves...



This is bar beach as it was in the mid 1960s. Notice the absence of some buildings at the far end

Picture courtesy www.elderdempster.co.uk

Bar beach as I knew it in the 1980s
Picture courtesy www.onlinenigeria.com




Bar beach by 2004
Picture courtesy alvinvdv

By the mid 1990s, the effects of global warming began to manifest on bar beach. During rainy season, the beach at times would overflood its banks
Picture courtesy www.unesco.org

Gradually, the beach began to loose its features to the seawater.
Picture courtesy www.hitech-company.com

Soon the beach was almost gone. People and companies situated near its shores must have raised alarm. Some moved away, others didn't. Meanwhile, the beach was dangerously very near to the Ahmadu Bello road that ran along its side.
Picture courtesy aaron-rowe.co.uk






A construction company was called to remedy the situation.
Picture courtesy www.hitech-company.com





Today, this is what's left of bar beach



...no sands, no shells, no thatch shelters, nothing but a huge dike blocking the raging waves of the beach.

IJEBU TRIPPING

, pTook a trip to Ijebu-Igbo in Ogun State and tried catching anything I could on camera.

There's something about those rusty rooftops and tarred roads that gives me some kind of nostalgia...



... And the hilly landscape littered with ancient old brazillian styled houses...






Some of these ancient houses have very large rooms, you'd wonder if giants lived in them. Like this one wifey posed in front of.



This building which I snapped on the way bares a striking resemblance to Nigeria's first storey building that was built during the slave trade era.

A lumber truck makes its way across the town bearing mighty trunks due for one of the sawmills.

Somebody once said Nigerians are always jacks-of-all-trades. Well this shop with a funny name proves that person right!

This tricycle driver had just dropped us when his colleagues at the taxi park surrounded his vehicle, congratulating him on his newly acquired tricycle. Hmm...every little achievement is worth celebrating.

Two Ijebu school kids wait in anticipation for their Mum to give them lunch money while their younger siblings have fun with dirt lying around.