Understanding Nigeria’s Coastal Crisis – What Pluboard’s investigation reveals

For months, Pluboard has investigated the deepening insecurity and climate pressures confronting Nigeria’s coastal communities – a sector that feeds millions yet remains absent from policy.

Our first report revealed how pirate attacks and sea robbery continue to terrorise small-scale fishers and women traders despite official claims that Nigerian waters are safe. The second exposed how the entire artisanal fishing economy operates without government attention, support or regulation. The third article, published Wednesday, examined climate pressures through the experience of one community in Andoni, Rivers State.

This explainer brings together the major findings: what is driving the coastal crisis, how it is reshaping livelihoods, and why it matters for national food security.

Why this matters

Nigeria’s artisanal fishing sector produces most of the fish Nigerians consume, sustains entire coastal economies, and anchors national nutrition. Yet it is buckling under piracy, pollution, extreme weather, and sustained government neglect. Despite assurances of improved maritime security, fishers and traders continue to face deadly attacks. These violent pressures now intersect with climate change and long-standing environmental damage, threatening a critical source of protein and income.

What emerges is a picture of three interconnected failures – security, environment, and policy – that are pushing Nigeria’s largest informal maritime workforce to brink.

Piracy never stopped – it only changed targets

While the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) cite “no piracy in four years,” Pluboard’s reporting across coastal states shows that attacks on artisanal boats never ended. They simply shifted to smaller, unprotected targets.

Armed groups operating in fast speedboats intercept fishing boats, stealing outboard engines worth ₦3m–₦5m. Fishers who resist are beaten or thrown overboard; some never return. Women, who trade seafood and other items across coastal communities, are attacked and assaulted. Multiple raids occur within days in some communities.

Victims like Ita James, 51, in Ibaka, have lost several engines and now work as hired hands to survive. “It is like working for the criminals,” he said.

The official statistics focus on large vessels and international waters, creating a false impression of safety. Meanwhile, the domestic fishing backbone remains exposed.

Communities now pay armed groups for “security”

With no credible state protection, many fishing settlements pay monthly levies – ₦30,000 to ₦80,000 per boat – to local armed actors to reduce attacks. Those who cannot pay risk losing their engines or being targeted.

This arrangement deepens dependence on militancy, entrenches extortion along the coastline, and pushes fishers further into uncertainly.

Government attention is almost entirely missing

The deeper crisis is policy failure. Nigeria has never implemented a national fisheries policy; a 2025–2029 draft has remained unapproved for more than two years. The Ministry of Marine & Blue Economy, created in 2023, has yet to roll out any programme for small-scale fishers.

Across all states visited, fishers and traders operate without registration, without insurance, without access to credit or safety equipment, and without any functioning framework for security or support. Calls for intervention – such as dredging the dangerously silted Ibeno channel – go unanswered. The Akwa Ibom State government did not respond to questions on its plans for the sector.

This policy vacuum ensures that each loss, whether from piracy, storms, or pollution, pushes households deeper into poverty with no path to recovery.

Climate change is battering coastal communities

Extreme weather is compounding insecurity. Fishers describe storms that last weeks longer than normal, unpredictable rainfall, and near-shore fishing grounds that are now too dangerous to enter.

They spend more on fuel travelling farther offshore, where warming waters have pushed fish deeper, and where pirate activity is most aggressive.

Scientists warn Nigeria could lose up to 53 percent of its fish stocks by 2050.

Environmental decline makes matters worse. In communities like Ibeno, sand accumulation has choked waterways, leaving deep channels shallow and deadly. Creeks in Andoni and Ikuru now dry out seasonally, exposing white sand where rivers once flowed.

Pollution remains a constant threat. Oil spills, including the December 2024 Shell spill in Bonny, have left lasting scars: blackened mangroves, dark water, and contaminated nets and boats. The ecological damage is wiping out breeding grounds and accelerating the sector’s collapse.

Overfishing and industrial abuse intensify the pressure

Fishers report that motorised boats now operate year-round, giving stocks no time to recover. Illegal industrial trawlers push aside smaller vessels, cut nets, and sweep up near-shore species meant for artisanal fishers. Combined with pollution, these practices have emptied many traditional fishing areas.

Pluboard documented dying mangroves, polluted creeks, and silted channels across Rivers and Akwa Ibom that make navigation dangerous and fishing unproductive.

The human toll keeps rising

Dozens of deaths were reported in the communities visited. Fishers drown in the choked channel; others are lost to storms that are stronger and more unpredictable.

The Ibeno ocean channel alone has claimed 29 lives this year due to severe siltation.

Families lose their only means of livelihood. Women traders abandon the trade after repeated attacks. Many young men are quitting fishing entirely, with no alternative income.

This investigation was supported by the Pulitzer Center.