Up to 100 rusty shipwrecks line
Nigeria's 853km (530-mile) shore,
officials say. Some have been
stranded for years and they are
now being blamed for erosion that
threatens homes and livelihoods.
The waterfront community at Alpha
Beach in Lagos date their problems to
a year ago when a barge washed up a
kilometre away. Since its arrival, they
say the waves have eaten into the land
at a rate of up to 20m a month.
"Because the ship is such a solid object
being where it shouldn't be, it causes a
direct impediment to the natural flow
of the current and stops
sedimentation," says Desmond Majek
from the Nigeria Conservation
Foundation.
"But what's worse than that is that it
causes these eddy currents that
immediately start to chew up the entire
shoreline."
Buildings and roads have crumbled
into the advancing water. Since April
the local Muslim community has been
forced to worship in a makeshift tent.
"The mosque is in the sea now," says
the mosque's imam, Banuso
Shamusideen. "The water just came
and destroyed it. In three hours
everything collapsed."
Other buildings along the waterfront
are now little more than piles of
rubble. For those whose homes are
just a few metres from the sea, panic is
starting to set in.
'Disaster zone'
"It's terrifying. In fact at night we don't
sleep because we're thinking the
water could come in at any moment,"
Bode Ajakaye says, pointing out the
home he had bought with his wife
Ladi to retire to.
"And the problem has been there for a
while and it's caused by this wrecked
ship. It's a disaster zone I must tell
you."
"The sea is inching [forward] every
second," Mrs Ajakaye adds with a
shake of her head.
"All the coconut trees have fallen into
the sea. We need Nimasa [Nigerian
Marine and Administration and Safety
Agency] to remove this wrecked ship
and hope that the beach comes back."
Nimasa is blamed by many for the
number of wrecks, as it is responsible
for the quality of ship that operates in
Nigeria's waters and should be taking
action to remove the stranded vessels.
The agency's director general Patrick
Agpobolokemi defends his approach,
saying officials were still carrying out
an inventory of the number of ships
stranded along the waterfront.
"Most of these ships that are
abandoned in our waters are owned
by foreigners. Foreigners have flouted
our rules," he said.
"We are following due process in
removing these wrecks and we are
approaching the last lap of this
process."
Painfully slow
Under maritime law it is the
responsibility of the ship's owner to
remove their stranded vessel from the
coast.
But with many of the wrecks having
been bought cheap and barely
seaworthy to work in Nigeria's oil
industry, when trouble strikes they are
often abandoned to the elements.
"The major issue is that when it [the
ship] comes in, it takes a while for the
government to get involved because
of avoidance of litigation," Kunle
Akinde from Accurist Marine and
Dredging told me.
"They want to appeal for the owners
of the vessel to initially remove them.
By the time the government comes in
the ship has really sunk into the beach
and it becomes more difficult to
remove."
Mr Akinde is being employed as a
contractor by Lagos state government
to remove five ships from the state's
congested waters.
But it is a painfully slow process. Each
wreck takes up to six months to be
fully dismantled and conditions can be
difficult and dangerous.
His work removing the barge near
Alpha Beach is currently suspended
due to high tides.
Not everyone is quite as convinced as
the locals that shipwrecks are the
underlying cause of the community's
problem. Global warming and rising
sea levels have also been cited as
contributing factors.
"The problem of Alpha Beach is
coastal erosion generated by the
ocean's surge," says Prince Segun
Oniru from Lagos state government.
"If we act quickly enough we can save
life and property. But we need federal
help."
In July, President Goodluck Jonathan
visited Alpha Beach to see the erosion
for himself and promised to take the
problem seriously.
Mr Oniru has employed contractors to
remove the wrecks but would like to
see a barrier built out into the sea to
protect the area.
But the costs of such a major project
are huge and the wheels of
government in Nigeria turn slowly.
Whether the erosion is being caused
by the shipwreck, ocean conditions or
a bit of both, by the time a decision is
made Alpha Beach may have
disappeared under the waves.
Nigeria's coast 'threatened
by shipwrecks'
By Jonah Fisher
BBC News, Lagos
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Nigeria's coastline is littered with
shipwrecks

seriously this is too much for lagos state alone to handle. . . i tot we have a president.