Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The Niger Delta Patriotic Front has accused the Federal Government of abandoning more than 150 coastal communities across the Niger Delta to the relentless advance of the Atlantic Ocean, warning that the region’s riverine settlements are being systematically wiped off the map while the government that derives its wealth from their land looks the other way. In a statement issued on Thursday, September 10, 2026, and signed by its President, Comrade David Odeli, and Publicity Secretary, Timi Okubor, the group said successive military and civilian administrations have treated the Niger Delta as a cash cow to be milked rather than a homeland to be protected, and demanded that the Federal Government act with urgency before more communities are lost to the sea.
The group identified Agge in Bayelsa State, Forcados in Burutu Local Government Area, Ugborodo Federated Communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area, and Orere Communities including Ogheye Eghoroke and Ogheye Dimigun in Delta State as some of the worst-hit areas. In Ondo State, the communities of Eki-tie Eki-Kporo, Awoye, Igbokoda, Ayetoro, Ekoregho and Araromi have also lost significant parts of their land to ocean surge. The NDPF said the situation had assumed the proportions of a slow-moving humanitarian catastrophe that has displaced thousands, destroyed homes, farmlands, fishing settlements and ancestral heritage, and threatened the very existence of communities that have occupied the coastline for centuries.
The scale of the devastation is staggering. In Ayetoro, a riverine community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, the ocean has swallowed more than 80 per cent of the town’s original landmass, according to the Chairman of the Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission. Once regarded as one of the most prosperous settlements in the Niger Delta, Ayetoro has been reduced to a fragment of its former self, with its remaining residents living in constant fear of the next surge. In 2024, over 5,000 residents were displaced by ocean surge in Ayetoro alone, while more than 1,000 homes and 25 schools were submerged in a separate incident. Sangana community in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State has lost more than 800 metres of land to the ocean, and in May 2026, residents of Obuguru community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State raised the alarm over the steady consumption of their ancestral homeland by the Atlantic Ocean at the River Forcados Estuary. The pattern is repeated across the coastline, from Bayelsa to Delta to Ondo, leaving a trail of displacement, destitution and despair.
The NDPF did not limit its criticism to the ocean surge. The group decried the lethargic and often abandoned state of major roads across the region, including the 422.9-kilometre Warri-to-Calabar East-West Road, the Lagos-Benin-Asaba Road, the Benin-Sapele-Warri Road and the Koko-Ogheye-Lekki Lagos Road, which have remained in various stages of disrepair decades after they were first conceptualised. It condemned the siting of the headquarters of International Oil Companies outside their operational bases in the Niger Delta, arguing that the practice had deprived the region of the economic and social benefits that should accrue to host communities. The group said the Niger Delta, despite producing the bulk of Nigeria’s crude oil and gas, continues to suffer from national exclusion, inadequate integration and underdevelopment, and demanded an alternative presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 elections, saying successive administrations have abandoned the region since independence.
The NDPF’s demands were specific and far-reaching. It called on the Federal Government, through its interventionist agencies, relevant ministries and departments, to develop a strong regional policy in collaboration with the governments of the affected states to prevent Niger Delta coastal communities from being wiped away by sea pressure. It urged the government to ensure that all seaports in the Niger Delta work optimally, and to fast-track the rehabilitation of the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries to extricate the region from the volatility of crude oil prices at the international market and their impact on the price of refined products. The group also called for a comprehensive shoreline protection programme that would safeguard the remaining communities from the advancing ocean.
The NDPF’s intervention comes amid growing frustration in the Niger Delta over what residents and activists describe as decades of neglect by the Federal Government and the International Oil Companies that have extracted billions of dollars in crude oil from the region. In May 2026, environmental rights activist Comrade Mulade Sheriff raised the alarm over the worsening coastal erosion threatening Obuguru community, calling on President Tinubu, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and other stakeholders to intervene before the community is completely wiped out. He decried the condition of other riverine communities including Beniboye, Isiayegbe and Okuntu, saying they had continued to suffer the environmental consequences of oil exploration, heavy boat traffic and wave actions without adequate support or compensation. In October 2025, residents of Ugborodo in Warri South-West Local Government Area appealed to the Federal Government and International Oil Companies to provide world-class shore protection, lamenting that after over five decades of oil operations in their land, no serious value had been added to their lives.
The Federal Government has previously acknowledged the severity of the crisis. In July 2026, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr Bernard Mohammed Doro, described the Niger Delta as a place of special concern to the Federal Government in view of the peculiar challenges of environmental degradation and oil and gas pollution. He visited communities in Eastern Obolo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State that are constantly facing extinction from ocean surge, including Iko Town, Edowik, Olokpong and Emeroke 1 and 2, and pledged to work collaboratively with the state government to address the scourge. Traditional rulers in the affected communities appealed for urgent embankment intervention projects to safeguard their communities from being washed off the map of the state. Yet the crisis has continued to worsen, and the NDPF’s statement is a stark reminder that pledges and visits have not translated into the concrete action that the people of the Niger Delta urgently need.
The ocean surge is not a problem that will resolve itself. Rising sea levels, exacerbated by climate change, mean that the Atlantic will continue to advance unless decisive and sustained intervention is undertaken. The NDPF’s call for a regional policy, functional seaports, rehabilitated refineries and shoreline protection is a comprehensive agenda for action. But its most urgent demand is also the simplest: that the Federal Government and its agencies act with the urgency that a national emergency demands. For the people of Ayetoro, Sangana, Obuguru, Agge, Forcados and the more than 150 other communities that the NDPF says have been ravaged, the question is not whether the government has the resources or the capacity to act. It is whether it has the will. As the Atlantic continues its relentless advance, the answer to that question will determine whether the Niger Delta remains a homeland or becomes a memory.
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