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Today on State of the World, a land grab on Nigeria's coast.
You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. Adjacent to Nigeria's crowded commercial capital of Lagos is a large lagoon separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a long sand peninsula. This lagoon, along with others in the area, are what give the city of Lagos its name. For decades, communities have thrived on the peninsula and the islands in the lagoon.
But in the last few years, there's been a violent shift. The Nigerian Navy and government have evicted thousands of people from these communities in an apparent effort to make way for luxury developments. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu takes us there. 57-year-old Samuel Adosie makes his living on Takwabe, one of the most popular beaches in Lagos.
He strolls across the white sand each weekend as he has for decades a guitar hanging across his lean frame, earning tips as he serenades visitors with covers of classic songs. While he plays, people lounge in wooden cabanas facing the shore or play badminton and soccer on the sand. Others sit on the nearby rocks to fish or watch the waves.
But there's a darker side to life here for the lower-income communities who populate the area around the bay. They sustain the beach and depend on it, but increasingly face violence and uncertainty.
Among them is 40-year-old Esther Isobo. She runs a bar selling palm wine, a milky alcoholic drink tapped from palm trees. I was here in 1984 when I was a little baby anyway. She's lived on Takwa Bay her whole life, in a wooden bungalow her uncle built, until it was destroyed five years ago. Suddenly, one day we just wake up the same one hour, everybody back.
Speaking in Pidgin, she describes how scores of armed Navy personnel arrived at dawn. Without any warning, they ordered her and about 5,000 other people who lived by the sea to leave. She said they destroyed everything. They had documents proving ownership rights to their houses and land. But it didn't matter. She wasn't even given time to gather her belongings before bulldozers razed her home to the ground.
Since then, Isobo and hundreds who run businesses catering to tourists have been allowed to return, but they aren't allowed to build any permanent structures. So now she lives in a small shack that leaks when it rains. Yeah, this is where I'm sleeping. This is a life. It's not fair. I don't know why they are treating us like this. The evictions at Takobe aren't isolated.
Tens of thousands in beach communities on a 60-mile stretch of peninsula and islands around the Atlantic coast have been forcibly displaced by the Nandurra Navy, backed by the government.
The latest eviction was last year in Okogoro, a 100-year-old community of a few thousand people. But now it's mostly deserted, covered in heaps of rubble. This is where you stay? 58-year-old Felicia Ekrekene speaks in Pidgin and is squatting in a demolished house near the shore. At once, just one day, they said they would carry our load.
She said without warning, the 2,000 or so people living here were forced out last year. Now Ekwekene and a few others who've stayed live like fugitives, fleeing into the bushes whenever naval officers arrive. She said she strived for years to build her home here, but now it's gone.
The Nigerian Navy claim they've evicted residents for stealing oil from pipelines that flow through the lagoon, costing millions of dollars a year for Africa's biggest oil producer. But community advocates say there's a more sinister motive at play. It's a clear case of, let's say, a legitimate law enforcement purpose that was extended and abused to carry out a large-scale land grab of prime real estate, waterfront properties.
Megan Chapman is a lawyer and founder of Justice Empowerment Initiative, an NGO providing legal support for displaced communities. Essentially, what you've seen is a privatization of the beach in the hands of a few, you know, powerful interests. And on a boat ride around the coastline, this is plain to see. Several luxury beach clubs have sprung up across the lagoon and near the Atlantic coast.
And communities that were cleared out years ago have been replaced by resorts and bungalows, bars and pools leased for parties and weekend getaway. Back on Takua Bay, Esther Isobo still sells her palm wine. This was not how your life was before. No, I was living okay. She says everything has changed now. The Navy has established their own businesses and have doubled the entry fee to the beach for their own profit. Less people come here now, making it harder to make a living.
And she feels they could be forced out at any moment. I'm dying silently. Inside me, I'm dying silently. I will not tell you lie. And she says she's putting on a brave face to cover how she really feels. Emmanuel Akimotu, NPR News, Lagos. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.
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