Why a Nigerian coastal town is on the brink of extinction

AYETORO, Nigeria — Faith Aluko was asleep when she was suddenly jolted awake by a roar around 4 a.m. on the morning of April 19, 2023. She tottered to the door and saw her neighbors, all wet, scampering to safety as the ocean surge destroyed properties in a violent rage, some carrying bits of their belongings. She jumped out in a frenzy, still clad in her blue nightgown, and started running toward her shop where she sold phones and clothes and also operated a mobile agent service. When she got there, it had crumbled in half, its goods washed away, almost unrecognizable. “It was a real sad moment to see everything that I have worked for washed away,” Aluko told Devex, glints of hurt still evident in her eyes. “I graduated but without no job, I had to look for money to set up myself, and all of a sudden the sea just destroyed everything.” Ayetoro, a town located along the Atlantic coast in Ilaje, southwestern Nigeria, is on the brink of extinction due to years of recurrent sea incursion or coastal erosion — reduction of coastal land masses due to waves, storms, and flooding — that has taken up more than half of the land, destroyed homes, lives, and community heritage, forced residents out, and flattened the once burgeoning economic fortunes of the people. The town was founded in 1947 by a group of clergymen, and the residents are guided by communalist principles that kept the people happy, earning the town “the happy city” moniker. But these days, that appellation only serves as a reminder of a once glorious time in the distant memory of the 5,000 residents down from 30,000 in 2006. However tragic, Ayetoro’s situation is not an isolated case. It is just one of the communities along Nigeria’s 853-kilometer coastline battling extreme weather events and accelerated sea level rise brought about by global warming, which increases the sea temperatures, making it more violent than before, said Emmanuel Oladipo, a professor of climatology at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. This has endangered many communities and people. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that 27 million to 53 million people may need to be relocated if sea levels rise by 0.5 meters, which Nigeria is expected to see by the end of this century. Around 41 million Nigerians are said to live in high-exposure areas. ‘No respite’ Climate warnings show that Nigeria will experience about 1 meter to 1.5 meters of accelerated sea level between now and 2060, according to professor Chukwumerije Okereke, director of the Center for Climate Change at Alex Ekwueme Federal University. “This will result in radical alteration of coastlines as we know it today. And many communities around the [Niger] Delta area will be completely wiped, and this is what is already happening,” he said. “If we have 1 meter of accelerated sea level, we can actually lose up to 75% of the communities in the Delta. And on top of that, a lot of the big oil infrastructure we have is going to be affected and it is going to cost Nigeria about $17.5 billion in capital value of such accelerated sea level.” After Aluko saw her shop in ruins, she was able to pull some of her stock out of the water but nothing tangible could be salvaged. In total, she lost more than 500,000 naira ($521) worth of goods to that incident. “Many businesses have been paralyzed, we are struggling hard to eat. Many houses have been destroyed … This rapid destruction of properties is worth billions of naira.” --— Akingboye Omoye, Ayetoro’s community spokesperson “It has ruined a lot out of me. It is more or less that I am starting all over, where I ought to have started doing other things,” the mother of one told Devex. “I am devastated.” Since then, she has been trying to recoup and start all over, but it has been a tall order as she also supports her parents. Her monthly earning of 200,000 naira has dropped to 25,000 to 30,000 naira monthly. Akingboye Omoye, Ayetoro’s community spokesperson, said that despite the dangers confronting the community, no tangible respite has come from the government, which sends representatives after every storm surge but does not take any recognizable action to help the people. “Many businesses have been paralyzed, we are struggling hard to eat. Many houses have been destroyed, landlords are suddenly becoming tenants. This rapid destruction of properties is worth billions of naira,” he said. In 2004, the government awarded the Ayetoro shore protection contract to Gallet Nigeria Limited but the engineers left before starting any work. It was re-awarded to another company in 2009 but just as the earlier one, nothing came of it. Omoye imagined that if these contracts had been followed through, his hometown would not be in its current predicament. The Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, or OSOPADEC — the institution responsible for controlling and tackling coastal erosion, oil pollution, spillages, and other environmental problems of oil-producing communities such as Ayetoro — did not respond to Devex’s request for comment. ‘I am going to lose everything again’ Alebiosu Adeleye, a cyber cafe operator, grew up witnessing disasters wrecking his hometown. His family house has been submerged by the ocean and he lost his uncle three years ago after rubble fell and injured him during an incursion. The ocean surge in April destroyed his cafe, forcing him to start from scratch for the third time. He lost ten desktops and four laptops and is currently operating out of a makeshift shop that inches closer to the encroaching sea daily, but he barely makes enough to cater for himself, his wife, and three children, as many of his customers have relocated upland. “When I built [the shop] recently, it was far from the sea but here I am just close by again. That means if I am not careful, I am going to lose everything again. I had a very nice building before but due to the consistent surge, I just have to put up something to start up again,” the 32-year-old law graduate told Devex. He tries to remove his valuables, such as his one laptop and a desktop, and documents from the shop at the end of each business day but he said he is psychologically overwhelmed by thoughts of losing his new enterprise. “Looking at the sea, you think about when it will come again, when it will come to destroy you, you hardly sleep properly. My mind is not at peace,” he said, pointing at the sea now a stone's throw away from his shop. “Some of the money I borrowed, I am still paying back so I am now thinking what will be the next thing, what will I do when it happens again? That is the thought I am having every single day.” Eroding way of life The situation has altered the lifestyle of the Ayetoro community, especially as they have lost cultural monuments, important industries, and their primary trade, fishing. The Ilajes, a subgroup of the Yoruba people, are traditionally fishermen and the ripple effect of the rising sea level means they can no longer fish there. Many have relocated to other fishing communities and those who stay are forced to pursue other careers or fish in the surrounding water — but this has become increasingly impossible due to oil spillage by nearby oil companies. This effect also extends to fishmongers who buy fish from the fishermen and retail it fresh or smoked to buyers who come from nearby communities. Kehinde Nejo, a fishmonger, has had to make a daily trip to nearby communities so she’d be able to buy fish. In April, her kitchen, where she smokes the fish she retails, was lost to the water, dropping her daily income of about 20,000 naira to 3,000 naira or less because she is no longer able to sell the more profitable smoked fish. Wake-up call Climate change is one of the biggest economic, political, and development challenges facing Nigeria, according to Okereke, and the government needs to wake up to act against the danger it imposes on the country. “Nigeria has a national adaptation plan but for the most part, this is just a paper sitting on a shelf and there is no coordinated state effort to implement those,” he said. “Nigeria can also take advantage of the international agreement on climate change to be asking development partners to provide the finance to enable us [to] help communities that are most impacted by climate change to adapt.” “This is not a time to be complacent, and unless we take radical measures, I am afraid we will see more of this kind happening next year,” Okereke added. At the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year, high-income countries, principally responsible for greenhouse emissions, pledged a combined total of $700 million to the loss and damage fund initiated to support low- and middle-income countries facing climate challenges. But the current fund does not cover the needs of low- and middle-income countries which are currently estimated at a minimum of $400 billion per year and are expected to rise. At the summit, Nigeria announced that it had secured over $5 billion in commitments for its adaptation fund — $3 billion will be used for the recapitalization of the Green Climate Fund. Experts say the sea level rise causes varying impacts on different areas along the coast and community responses are usually inadequate due to poor knowledge, and technical and financial capacity. This is why local inhabitants are often forced to abandon their houses and migrate inland to a safe location, said Oladipo. “The federal government must work together with the state and local governments in the affected areas to recognize the regional and global dimensions of sea level rise. This way, the Nigerian coastline will be treated as one unit of complex dynamics that requires the development and implementation of a comprehensive coastal zone integrated management strategy and action plan that will address the complexity of the challenges,” he said. To achieve a solution, the government will need to explore and work within international response opportunities to mobilize the huge resources that will be needed to provide hard infrastructures such as dykes required to check the devastating impacts of sea incursions. Back in Ayetoro, Aluko is worried that her hometown might go extinct soon without an immediate intervention, forcing her to go and live elsewhere. “We need the government to come to our aid. The land is the most important to me, not my shop, clothes, and everything I have lost. The land is everything we are crying to our government to save,” she said. “If that is done, every other thing can be fixed. There is nowhere we can go from here.”