This Nigerian family, which was supposed to be a Christian utopia, is now helpless in the face of rising seas

TAIWO ADEBAYO AND DAN AKPOYI VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ayetoro, Nigeria – Ayetoro was long settled by coastal Nigerian families and nicknamed the “Happy City”, intended to be a Christian utopia that could be sinless and classless. However, its remnant citizens can now take modest action to protest the rising seas.

The structures have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, forming a growing number of habitual symbols along the sloping West African coast. The worn logs hit the waves like rotten enamel. Scattered foundations order the shore. Waves break against unwanted power poles.

For years, downstream countries have warned the region regarding the existential threat of rising seas. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is struggling to respond. Some plans to deal with beach coverage, even for Ayetoro, have come to nothing in a society where corruption and mismanagement are common.

According to early life leader Thompson Akingboye, prayers against the rising seas are “on everyone’s lips” in church every Sunday. However they know the answer will require more.

Even the church has been moved away from the sea twice. “The current location is also in danger now, the sea is only 30 meters (98 feet) away,” Akingboye said.

Hundreds of families have migrated. Of those who survived, Stephen Tunleys can only see the remains of his clothing store from a distance.

Tunlease said he lost his investment worth 8 million naira, or the equivalent of $5,500, at sea. Now it adopts a watery appearance. He maintains the canoe.

He said, “I will stay in Ayetoro because it is my father’s land, it is heritage land.”

The Mahin Dust Coast, where the family slipped in, lost more than 10 square kilometres, or about 60% of the land, to the sea over the next three decades.

Researchers studying satellite imagery of Nigeria’s coast say several things are contributing to Ayetoro’s disappearance.

Underwater oil drilling is one reason, according to marine geologist Olusegun Dada, a schoolteacher at the Federal College of Era in Akure, who has studied satellite imagery for years. As wealth is extracted, farms may sink.

However, he and his colleagues found alternative causes, including deforestation of the mangroves that support the Earth and erosion from ocean waves.

“When we started coming to this community, we had fresh water,” the grandfather said. These days, freshwater ecosystems are directly converting into brackish, marine ones.

Change in Nigeria is very expensive. The Global Cabinet estimated in a 2020 report that the cost of coastal erosion within three different coastal Nigerian states – Lagos, Delta and Pass River – was $9.7 billion, or more than 2% of the country’s GDP. It examined erosion, seepage, mangrove loss and air pollution and noted the highest costs of urbanization.

And yet dramatic photographs of coastal communities capture Nigeria’s attention month after month, just as a spill occurs once a year – another effect of the size trade.

However Ayetoro citizens cannot escape this.

Arowolo Mofeoluwa, a retired civil servant, said, “Ayetoro was like a paradise, a town where everyone lived happily.”

He estimated that with some efforts by some civilians to rebuild, two-thirds of the family had slowly been swept away beneath the waves.

“This is the third house we are living in, and now some people are living in the fourth house, and we again do not have enough space for ourselves. Four or five people living in a small room, you can just imagine how painful it is,” Mofioluwa said.

“If you look at where the sea is now, it’s the end of the former Ayatoro.”

For Oluwambe Ozagbohunmi, the traditional head of the family and head of the local church, the pain is not just about the loss of land, but also “what we are losing in our socio-cultural and religious identity”.

Some citizens say that even the graveyards have been washed away.

At the beginning of this time, the Ondo government showed its commitment to finding a “permanent solution” to Ayetoro by warning. However citizens said that this has been promised in the future.

It may take a lot of time for the efforts to be effective, Dada said. For years, he had been hoping for an environmental survey to be conducted to clarify what caused the family’s disappearance. However that has become useless.

The Niger Delta Building Fee, a central authority body partly intended to deal with environmental and alternative problems caused by oil exploration, did not respond to questions from the Associated Press about efforts to provide protection to the family beach. Gave.

Fee’s site lists a beach coverage mission in Ayetoro. A photo presents a sign marking the accomplishment with the motto, “Determined to Make a Difference!”

This mission was awarded 20 years ago. Enterprise status: “On.”

Citizens say that nothing ever started.

“Help will come one day, we believe,” said early life leader Akingboy.

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