A 34-year-old man known as John has lost his life after drowning during a church hangout at Elegushi Beach in Lagos State.
The church, based in Ikorodu, had organised a picnic for its youth members, among whom John was present.
Trouble started when the group was preparing to leave the beach and John was nowhere to be found. Subsequently, The PUNCH Metro gathered that an individual had witnessed him entering the water.
Despite the efforts of lifeguards and divers who were promptly alerted, the search for John in the water on that Saturday ended without success.
His body was finally recovered by lifeguards at the beach on Tuesday afternoon.
A source who witnessed the event but doesn’t want to be named said, “A church from Ikorodu had come to Elegushi beach for a hangout on Saturday. They were just young people who came around to have fun; about 35 of them came that Saturday.
“It happened that late in the afternoon when they were packing up to leave, they called everyone to make sure that they were all accounted for, 35 of them, before they left. That was how they realised that one of them, John, was missing.
“Then they started searching for him that evening. Then, someone told one of them that he had seen the guy walk towards the water thinking he knew how to swim.
“The group then called lifeguards and divers to help search for him that Saturday, but they didn’t find him until yesterday, Tuesday, at about 1 p.m., when they recovered his body at the beach.”
The Lagos Police Command Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the incident.
Hundeyin, a Superintendent of Police, said, “The family of the victim has been contacted and the body of the victim has also been deposited at the Yaba General Hospital for an autopsy.”
