Coastal communities in the Ilaje and Ese-Odo local government areas of Ondo State are facing an existential threat as rising sea levels and increased storm surge intensity accelerate the erosion of the shoreline at a rate that scientists say could make significant portions of the coastline uninhabitable within 20 years.
A study by the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR) documents an average sea level rise of 3.2 millimetres per year along the Ondo coastline over the past two decades, with storm surge events becoming increasingly severe and pushing saltwater further inland during the wet season.
In Ayetoro, one of the most affected coastal communities, residents have watched as the ocean has consumed what was once the centre of their town. Homes, a primary school, and a health centre that stood 200 metres from the shore 30 years ago are now underwater.
Community leader Deacon Adekunle Ajiboye described the situation with quiet devastation: Our fathers buried their fathers here. Now we cannot even find those graves. The sea has taken them. We are next.
Environmental experts say the crisis is compounded by decades of oil industry operations that have damaged the natural mangrove barriers which once protected the coastline, and by the continued extraction of groundwater which is causing land subsidence in already low-lying areas.
The Ondo State Government has submitted a request to the Federal Ministry of Environment for emergency coastal protection funding, but residents say they have been waiting for two years without a response.
