12 years ago today on August 13,2001,a dead baby blue whale washed ashore on Victoria Island,Lagos.Excited by the prospect of free meat,Nigerians from different parts of Lagos and nearby towns rounded up on the dead mammal armed with knives,machetes and axes to get a piece of the animal. A gang of youths set up barricades around the whale and started charging 20 naira 'admission fee' to see or cut a piece of meat from the carcass of the whale.Most took their chunk of whale meat home while many women and children did brisk business by hawking theirs on the street. Fights broke out several times and people accidentally cut themselves with knives during the row to share the meat.Lagos is home to about 12 million inhabitants at the time according to reporter Abiodun Raufu,many of whom are so poor they can hardly afford meat. Even when the whale started decaying and emitting some putrid odour,the Lagos scavengers continued to scavenge for meat from it.No one bothered to find out what killed the whale in the first place. *****As part of our attempt at demystifying the myth that Lagos and Nigeria is a rich country,we will continue to bring to the fore similar evidences of the condition of over 70 million Nigerians living below the poverty line**** Abiodun Raufu & Chika Omeje.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 08:17:00 +0000
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