In Nigeria, the impacts of climate change intersect with long-standing socio-political and economic vulnerabilities, producing displacement crises that are both complex and persistent.  The losses experienced by those who may be forced to move are not merely material. For many Nigerians, land is more than a resource; it is a living archive, containing the graves of ancestors, the presence of deities and the trees under which lineages began. The imperative to ‘move to safety’ is therefore entangled with an equally powerful imperative to remain. Communities often face an impossible choice: to abandon land and risk cultural erasure, or to remain in place and endure environmental danger.

The testimonies included here – supplemented by accounts documented in advocacy reports and journalistic sources – are used to illuminate how communities articulate loss, resilience and resistance.[1] The article explores both state-led and community-led responses, assessing where they have succeeded, where they have fallen short and why. It also considers the tensions that arise when technocratic relocation strategies collide with deep cultural attachment to place, and asks how lessons emerging from Nigeria – both promising practices and missteps – can inform displacement policy and practice in other climate-vulnerable contexts.

‘More than a buffer against waves’

Nigeria’s geographical diversity, from its low-lying coastal regions to forest belts and semi-arid northern plains, makes it especially susceptible to climate change impacts. In the Niger Delta, rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion, and relentless coastal erosion have submerged fishing villages and destroyed mangrove ecosystems, displacing tens of thousands of residents. Mangroves are more than a buffer against waves; they are nurseries for fish, a source of medicinal plants, and a place of spiritual significance in many Delta communities.[2]

In the southwest, sacred forests and river systems central to indigenous spiritual practices are threatened by deforestation, prolonged drought and erratic rainfall. The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has suffered flooding that has damaged shrines, altered the river’s course and uprooted ancient trees considered the dwelling places of spirits.

Northern Nigeria faces its own climate pressures. The encroachment of the Sahara through desertification has accelerated, reducing arable land and forcing pastoralist communities southwards in search of grazing land. This has contributed to tensions between herders and farmers, sometimes escalating into violent conflict.

The scale of the crisis across the country is staggering. In 2022 alone, the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency estimated that over 1.4 million people were affected by flooding across more than 30 states.[3]

Voices from the frontlines

The lived experiences of displacement are marked not just by the loss of property or income, but by the erosion of cultural and spiritual worlds. In Osogbo, Osun State, a 62-year-old priestess dedicated to worship of the Osun River deity described the stakes: “This land is not just soil. It is where our ancestors are buried, where the spirits live. They say the river is dangerous now, that we should move. But if we leave, we lose who we are”.

In Delta State, Joseph, a fisherman, watched the erosion advance year by year: “The water eats one house, then another. It is like the land is dying. I have lost my grandfather’s home. But I stay because this is where we bury our people. Who will find our spirits if we move?”

In Nembe, Bayelsa State, another fisherman echoed the sentiment: “We cannot carry our ancestors’ graves on our backs. If we go, it is like leaving them behind in the water”.

In Baga, Borno State, a town that once thrived on Lake Chad’s fishing economy, displacement has been compounded by conflict. With the lake shrinking to a fraction of its former size due to climate change, livelihoods vanished, and armed groups moved into the vacuum. Musa, a 45-year-old displaced father of five, explained: “We left because of fighting, but we would have left anyway. The water is gone. The fish are gone. The land is sand now. How do you stay in a place that has nothing?”

Such testimonies illuminate how displacement threatens not only physical safety but also cultural survival. For many, the right to remain is inseparable from the right to maintain identity, heritage and connection to the land.

Planned relocation: State approaches and community perspectives

Government-led relocation schemes in Nigeria are designed to move people from flood-prone and erosion-threatened areas to more secure sites. In principle, these efforts aim to protect lives and reduce exposure to hazards. In practice, however, they often overlook the socio-cultural and economic dimensions of displacement.

Daniel, a fisherman from Obogoro in Bayelsa State, recalled: “They came with trucks and told us they had land for us somewhere inland. But it’s bushland, we can’t fish there. They said we’d be safe, but safe from what? Hunger? No one asked us what we wanted”.

Relocation sites frequently lack basic services – clean water, schools or healthcare – and offer few livelihood options. Without meaningful consultation, relocation risks deepening hardship and triggering return migration to unsafe zones.

In Epe, Lagos State, a planned move of riverine dwellers sparked resistance when women leaders were excluded from planning committees. One protestor asked: “We carry the water, we cook, we fish, we know this land. But they did not ask us anything. How can you plan a move for a people without their mothers?”

In Cross River State, a displaced farmer similarly noted: “The new place they gave us has no market. We can farm, but who will buy our crops?

Such exclusion reflects a broader pattern in which relocation is treated as a technical problem to be solved by engineers and planners, rather than a social process requiring dialogue and negotiation.

Community-led adaptation and resistance

In contrast, some communities have organised to remain in place, advocating for adaptation strategies that honour cultural ties while addressing environmental risk.

In Ondo State, the grassroots coalition Aye Mo Ile Mi (“I Know My Land”) brings together farmers, traditional leaders, youth and religious custodians to push for sustainable and culturally attuned land-use planning. Kehinde, a 28-year-old youth leader and agroecology trainer, explained: “We don’t want to be victims. We want to be part of the solution. Give us the tools, not bulldozers. We have ways to work with the land, to make it live again”. The coalition partners with NGOs and universities to develop flood-resilient crops, reforest degraded areas, and restore sacred groves that serve both ecological and spiritual functions.

In Edo State, displaced farming families have revived traditional ‘communal work days’ to rebuild terraces and restore ancestral irrigation systems using indigenous engineering techniques. These efforts show that when communities are empowered, adaptation can be both culturally respectful and environmentally effective.

Cultural and psychological impacts

The consequences of displacement extend beyond material loss. Sacred landscapes, burial grounds and ceremonial sites are often abandoned or destroyed, severing connections to cosmology and collective memory. Chief Ajayi, an 84-year-old oral historian from Ogun State, reflected: “I was born under that tree. My father was buried beside it. Now the tree is gone, washed away. I don’t know how to pass on our stories any more”. A young man from Akwa Ibom shared: “We used to gather at the old shrine during planting season. Now it’s under the water. The planting feels empty without it”.

Some communities are using digital tools to document oral histories and ritual practices, creating archives that preserve memory even when physical landscapes are lost. Others are building replica shrines in relocation sites to re-anchor ritual life. While these strategies offer continuity, they cannot fully replace place-based traditions.

Integrating local knowledge and technology

Scientific tools such as satellite imagery can map flood risks and erosion patterns, but they must be paired with local ecological knowledge. Many communities possess deep environmental memory, passed down through observation of natural cycles, animal behaviour and spiritual signs. Abiola, a community organiser in Ondo State, recalled: “We knew the flood was coming. The birds were moving differently. The river spirit was angry. We prepared, but they didn’t listen to us”.

By integrating traditional observation with scientific data, risk assessments become more accurate and culturally resonant. Partnerships between meteorological agencies and community elders could improve early warning systems and ensure warnings are trusted and acted upon.

The role of faith and traditional institutions

Religious and traditional institutions remain central to resilience-building in climate-affected Nigerian communities. Temples, mosques, churches and shrines often serve not only as moral anchors but also as gathering spaces, emergency shelters and channels for mobilising collective action.

In Osun State, custodians of the Osun Sacred Grove integrate spiritual rituals with ecological restoration, replanting native trees and maintaining sacred waterways as both an act of worship and an environmental safeguard. Elsewhere, interfaith coalitions bringing together Christian, Muslim and indigenous leaders have begun framing climate action as a shared moral responsibility, lobbying for adaptation funding and policies that respect cultural heritage.

Faith leaders possess a unique authority to shape public attitudes. When they frame environmental stewardship as an ethical and spiritual duty, they can inspire large-scale volunteerism for cleanup campaigns, tree planting, flood mitigation works and sustainable farming practices. By engaging these institutions as equal partners in planning, policymakers can bridge the gap between technical adaptation strategies and the lived cultural realities of affected communities, ensuring that resilience efforts are not only scientifically sound but also socially and spiritually rooted.

Lessons for other climate-vulnerable contexts

Nigeria’s experience offers transferable insights for other climate-vulnerable contexts in West Africa and beyond. Adaptation efforts achieve greater legitimacy and impact when they are co-designed with affected communities, grounding interventions in local knowledge and respecting deep cultural ties to land and water. Planned relocation, when unavoidable, must be understood not merely as a logistical or engineering task but as a deeply social process. This requires sustained consultation, the provision of meaningful livelihood support such as market-relevant skills training, access to viable economic opportunities and mentoring and the establishment of cultural safeguards that go beyond symbolic recognition to include the explicit incorporation of community traditions and custodians. For example, the role of the priestess of the Osun River should not only be acknowledged but actively integrated into relocation and development planning, ensuring that rituals, sacred sites and practices central to community identity and heritage are preserved and transmitted across generations. Without these, even well-resourced projects risk fostering mistrust, resistance or unintended harm.

Faith-based and traditional institutions, which often serve as trusted moral authorities and conveners, can be powerful allies in mobilising public engagement and sustaining resilience initiatives. Effective climate adaptation benefits from integrating digital technologies such as satellite imagery, climate modelling and mobile early-warning systems with indigenous knowledge systems that carry generations of place-based environmental understanding. Together, these tools can produce more accurate, locally relevant risk assessments, enabling policies and programmes that are scientifically sound, culturally resonant and socially inclusive.

Final thoughts

Climate-induced displacement in Nigeria underscores the inseparability of environmental change and cultural identity. The testimonies of fishermen watching ancestral waters swallow their boats, priestesses tending sacred groves under threat, elders recalling the stories etched into each tree and shoreline, and youth navigating between inherited traditions and uncertain futures all reveal a shared truth: the decision to stay or to move is never purely logistical. It is as much about safeguarding heritage, memory, and belonging as it is about ensuring physical safety.

These choices are embedded in histories of place, spiritual commitments, and the social fabrics that bind communities together. The path forward demands far more than relocation blueprints or climate-resilient infrastructure. It calls for approaches that listen deeply to the land, to history and to the communities who refuse to be erased by rising waters or creeping drought. Policies and programmes must move beyond the transactional language of ‘risk reduction’ to embrace the relational realities of displacement. Only by bridging environmental, cultural and social dimensions can responses to climate-induced displacement be not only protective but also life-affirming, enabling communities to endure with dignity and agency.

Seun Bamidele
Lecturer in Conflict, Security and Development Studies, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria

oluwaseun.bamidele@gmail.com

linkedin.com/in/dr-dr-seun-bamidele-7956111b/

[1]Testimonies cited in this article are based on the author’s past interviews with NGOs, local media representatives and affected individuals, complemented by secondary materials from advocacy organisations and academic publications (2022–2024)

[2]Aransiola S A, et al  (2024) ‘Niger Delta mangrove ecosystem: Biodiversity, past and present pollution, threat and mitigation’, Regional Studies in Marine Science, Vol 75: 103568

[3]Zabbey N, Giadom F D and Babatunde B B (2019) ‘Nigerian coastal environments’, in C Sheppard (ed) World seas: An environmental evaluation, Academic Press

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