The beach shrinks every year in Ayetoro, southern Nigeria, leaving behind the remains of homes swallowed by the ocean — some years ago, others only months earlier.
“We are walking on people’s houses,” said 35-year-old Thompson Akingboye as he walked along a narrow strip of sand accessible only by boat.
Nicknamed “The Happy Place,” Ayetoro — home to around 10,000 people — was founded in 1947 by a group of communist-inspired Christians who sought to build a society based on the communal ownership and sharing of resources.
Today, however, the community’s future looks increasingly uncertain as Ayetoro becomes one of Nigeria’s most visible victims of coastal erosion.
Families whose homes are destroyed repeatedly rebuild further inland, only to see the advancing ocean claim their houses once again.
Coastal erosion in Ayetoro has accelerated since the early 2000s. The same fate has befallen 19 other communities in the Ilaje district, where the Atlantic Ocean is steadily encroaching, with climate change contributing to rising sea levels and increasingly threatening coastal settlements.
A study by spatial planning specialist Barnabas Ogirima James found that Ayetoro’s coastline receded by an average of 15 metres (50 feet) a year between 1987 and 2022.
In 2024, the journal Scientific Reports estimated that sea levels along West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea were rising at approximately 3.9 millimetres a year — about 10.5 percent above the global average.
“I took this photo 14 years ago. Today, if you stand in the exact spot where I was, you’ll see there are no buildings left,” said Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, the traditional king of Ayetoro, as he stood outside his palace.
In old photographs, a telecommunications tower stands amid rows of houses. When AFP visited this month, the tower was still standing, but it was now surrounded by water and the remains of buildings swallowed by the sea.
“My palace once had 100 rooms. Only about a dozen remain,” the king said, dressed in a white tunic.
His bedroom is now in the section of the palace closest to the ocean. At night, the sound of waves crashing against the walls interrupts his sleep.
“This is our land. Where can we go? It’s complicated,” he said.
‘Refugee in my own community’
In April, a storm caused sea levels to surge, trapping people inside the palace for a week.
“I’ve become a refugee in my own community. Since losing my father’s house in 2019 — swallowed and destroyed by the ocean — the only thing I managed to save was my university degree certificate,” said Akingboye, a fisherman and personal assistant to the king.
Some families have moved more than three times, he said, standing on Ayetoro’s streets, where plastic waste carried in by the waves litters the community.
Many of the houses are built from wood and corrugated iron sheets, with raised wooden walkways connecting them.
Oluwasegun Babatunde Esan, a landscape architecture researcher at the University of Lagos who collaborates with Harvard University, said part of the problem stems from how land is being used.
As Nigeria’s population grows and cities expand rapidly, floodplains, swamps and coastal areas that naturally absorb storm surges and floodwater are increasingly being cleared for settlements. This, he said, is worsening erosion along the country’s 850-kilometre (525-mile) coastline.
“There is growing demand for land, whether for housing or industrial activities,” Esan said, stressing the need for stricter regulation. He also recommended restoring natural barriers by planting mangroves and coconut palms.
Fragile social services
Ayetoro occasionally receives relief supplies from government agencies and non-governmental organisations, but residents say the assistance remains inadequate.
The community’s only health centre has already been lost to the waves.
“Sometimes the water reaches window level, yet we have to keep working. We help women give birth under these conditions. We have no choice,” said Omomiye Oluwaseun, a 26-year-old healthcare worker.
With brackish water constantly inundating the community, residents face health risks, including high blood pressure and water-borne diseases such as typhoid and diarrhoea, Oluwaseun said.
“The sea has already contaminated the water supply, yet they use it for cooking because it is the only water available to them,” she added.
The ocean has also taken away the stability that should accompany each school year, said teacher Sunday Akinjoye, 45.
“Schools have been relocated several times, just like their homes. It takes a psychological toll on them. Their ability to concentrate on their studies drops drastically,” he said.
For the people of Ayetoro, rebuilding has become a cycle with no clear end. No matter how far inland they move, the mighty Atlantic continues to gain ground.
AFP
