This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The beach shrinks every year in Ayetoro, in southern Nigeria, and what is left is peppered with the remains of homes swallowed by the ocean—some years ago, some just months prior. "We are walking on people's houses," said 35-year-old Thompson Akingboye, moving 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 seeking to create a society based on the communal sharing of assets. But its days seem numbered, as the community becomes one of Nigeria's most visible victims of coastal erosion. Families whose homes are destroyed are constantly rebuilding farther inland, only for the water to strike them again.
Coastal erosion in Ayetoro has steadily increased since the early 2000s. The story is the same in 19 other communities in Ilaje district. Aided by climate change, the Atlantic Ocean is encroaching and sweeping away everything in its path.
The town's coastline receded by an average of 15 meters (50 feet) every year between 1987 and 2022, according to a study by spatial planning specialist Barnabas Ogirima James. In 2024, the journal Scientific Reports estimated that the current rate of sea-level rise along West Africa's Gulf of Guinea is approximately 3.9 millimeters per year—about 10.5% higher than 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, outside his palace. In old photographs, a telecom tower stands surrounded by houses. When visited this month, the tower was still there—now encircled by water and the remnants of buildings swallowed by the ocean.
"My palace once had 100 rooms. Only about a dozen remain," the king, dressed in a white tunic, told AFP. His bedroom is now in the part of the building closest to the ocean.
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