AYETORO, Nigeria. The Nigerian coastal community of Ayetoro was founded decades ago and nicknamed the “Happy City,” intended to be a sinless, classless Christian utopia. But now the remaining residents can do little about rising sea levels.
Buildings have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, an increasingly common sight along West Africa’s vulnerable coast. Old wood sticks out of the waves like rotten teeth. Shattered foundations line the shore. Waves crash against abandoned electrical poles.
For years, low-lying nations have warned the world about the existential threat of rising sea levels. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is struggling to respond. Some plans to address coastal protection, including for Ayetoro, have failed in a nation where corruption and mismanagement are widespread.
Prayers against rising seas are “on everyone’s lips” in church every Sunday, according to youth leader Thompson Akingboye. But they know the solution will require much more.
Even the church has been moved away from the sea twice. “The current location is now also threatened, with the sea just 30 meters (98 feet) away,” Akingboye said.
Thousands of people have left. Of those that remain, Stephen Tunlese can only see the remains of his clothing store from afar.
Tunlese said he lost an investment of eight million naira, or the equivalent of $5,500, at sea. He now adjusts to a watery future. He repairs canoes.
“I will stay in Ayetoro because this is my father’s land, this is heritage land,” he said.
The Mahin mud coast, where the community is moving away, has lost more than 10 square kilometers, or almost 60% of its land, to the ocean in the last three decades.
Researchers studying satellite images of the Nigerian coast say several things are contributing to Ayetoro’s disappearance.
Underwater oil drilling is one reason, according to marine geologist Olusegun Dada, a professor at the Federal University of Technology in Akure who has studied years of satellite images. As resources are extracted, the ground can sink.
But he and his colleagues point to other reasons, including deforestation of mangroves that help anchor the land and erosion caused by ocean waves.
“When we started coming to this community, we had fresh water,” Dada said. Today, the freshwater ecosystem is transforming into a salty marine one.
Transformation is enormously expensive in Nigeria. In a 2020 report, the World Bank estimated the cost of coastal degradation in three other Nigerian coastal states (nearby Lagos, Delta and Cross River) at $9.7 billion, or more than 2% of the country’s GDP. Erosion, flooding, loss of mangroves and pollution were analyzed, and the high rate of urbanization was observed.
And yet, dramatic images of disappearing coastal communities only capture Nigeria’s attention from time to time, such as when annual floods occur, another effect of climate change.
But the residents of Ayetoro cannot turn their backs on him.
“Ayetoro was like a paradise, a city where everyone lived happily and happily,” said Arowolo Mofeoluwa, a retired civil servant.
She estimated that two-thirds of the community has been slowly swept away by the waves, along with multiple attempts by some residents to rebuild.
“This is the third house we have lived in, and now there are some who live in the fourth house, and again we do not have enough space for ourselves. Four or five people living in a small room, you can imagine how painful it is,” Mofeoluwa said.
“If you look at where the sea is now, that is the end of the old Ayetoro.”
For the traditional leader of the community and head of the local church, Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, the pain is not only in the loss of land but also in “what we are losing in our sociocultural and religious identity.”
Some residents say even cemeteries have been leveled.
Earlier this year, the Ondo State government announced its commitment to finding “lasting solutions” to the threat to Ayetoro. But residents said that had been promised in the past.
It may be too late for the efforts to be effective, Dada said. For years he has hoped that an environmental study will be carried out to better understand the causes of the community’s disappearance. But that has been in vain.
The Niger Delta Development Commission, a government body intended in part to address environmental and other problems caused by oil exploration, did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about efforts to protect the coast from the community.
The commission’s website lists a coastal protection project in Ayetoro. A photograph shows a sign marking the feat with the slogan “Determined to make a difference!”
The project was awarded two decades ago. Project status: “In progress”.
Residents say nothing ever started.
“We believe that help will come one day,” said youth leader Akingboye.
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