Kinetic Sports, organisers of the prestigious annual beach tournament, COPA Lagos at the weekend mobilised Nigerians from all walks of life for a clean-up of Lagos coastal area of the Elegushi Beach in Lekki.
The exercise which has become a part of the yearly COPA Lagos calendar is aimed at conserving the beach. It encourages cleanliness in the environment as a way of preserving marine life. About 150 people took part in this year’s edition of the exercise, including popular celebrities, staff of Kinetic Sports, and top officials from corporate sponsors of COPA Lagos including FCMB, Pepsi and Wakanow and Hero; with SuperSport and Cool Fm as partners..
Speaking during exercise, Managing Director, Kinetic Sports, Samson Adamu, said beach clean-up exercise was one of the corporate social responsibility activities for COPA Lagos.
He disclosed that the target for this year is to collect at least 750kg of trash during the exercise, with each participant required to collect at least 15kg of trash.
According to him, garbage has been discarded into the oceans for as long as humans have lived on seashores or near waterways flowing into the sea, with serious consequences on human and marine life. He identified plastics as one of the worst forms of garbage found on the ocean shore because of its indestructible, indecomposable, lightweight and floating nature.
“Presently, there are millions of kilogrammes of trash on ocean beaches around the world, thus necessitating a need to constantly clean up our beaches. This is what conservationists around the world are saying, and we are heeding that call, while also calling on other Nigerians to join because it is a necessity,” he said.
Adamu thanked the participants in the exercise, and expressed the belief that the awareness created by the COPA Lagos beach clean-up will spur Nigerians to manage their waste better through proper waste disposal and recycling. He reiterated the importance of a clean beach to Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
“Our major aim of establishing the annual COPA Lagos event is to encourage more Nigerians to embrace the beach culture and attract foreigners to our beaches, thereby growing the country’s revenue from tourism. Nigeria is blessed with lots of beautiful beaches, which can become major tourist attractions like they have in Miami and other places. But the fact remains that these beaches are dirty, and there’s no way we can attract visitors to these beaches if they should remain in their present state,” he said.
