INVESTIGATION: Deadly attacks at sea push Nigeria’s fishers, traders to the brink

The men who cornered Ita James did not come for his catch. In this bustling town of Ibaka, one of Nigeria’s largest fishing towns, fishers know how sudden and brutal such an encounter could be. Speedboats fitted with twin 200-horsepower engines emerge from the horizon, shots are fired, and fishermen are forced by men armed with automatic rifles to promptly unbolt and hand over their outboard engines. Those who resist are beaten, sometimes killed.

After the attackers vanish, the victims’ boats are left dead on the water, drifting until help arrives. Many fishers return home broken, having borrowed to replace a stolen engine, only to lose it again.

“It is like working for the criminals,” said Mr James, who lost two engines in two years. “It happened more than once; I lost them. Some people have lost [engines] three or more times.”

After he escaped a third attack, this time with a borrowed motor, the owner promptly took the equipment away. The 51-year-old now works as a hired hand on another boat, earning just enough to keep his family. “It has been difficult, very difficult. If you fight them, they kill you. People are killed and thrown in the water.”

During an interview in August, Mr James sat on a wooden bench with three other fishermen at Ibaka’s main harbour, repairing nets at a time when owners of engine-powered boats were at sea.

“They take our engines, phones, money; sometimes your fish and everything,” said Moses Lawrence, another fisher. “And you will be stranded and, [if] God helps you, another boat comes around. It is very common here; there is almost nobody who has not suffered this problem.”

He speaks flatly, his face lean and weathered in the morning sun, as the Atlantic lapped the coastline and dozens of traders walked by.

Officially, Nigeria’s waters are now safer. Maritime authorities say significant progress has been made in addressing piracy, with no recorded attack on vessels in four years. But along the same coastline, small-scale fishers and women traders tell a different story: of engines stolen, people kidnapped, and deaths that are not investigated. Despite upbeat security reports, attacks have shifted from oil tankers and industrial trawlers to the country’s poorest workers at sea.

“It is a big challenge for us, and nobody has helped us for years,” says Okon Ukutuda, a chief-designate in Ibaka and leader of one of the local fishermen unions. “Our people have died in this problem. Hundreds of people are affected a year.”

The crisis now shapes life along Nigeria’s 850-kilometre coastline: small-scale fishers, who supply more than 80 per cent of the country’s domestic catch, work for years or sell their belongings to buy boats and engines, only to lose them to sea robbers. Many are sometimes beaten, abducted, or killed. Women who trade across these waters are also frequent targets.

Fishers in Akwa Ibom, where Ibaka is located, have held protests to demand protection, but so far, that has not happened. The Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency said patrols have improved security. In the latest ICC International Maritime Bureau report on piracy and armed robbery at sea, the number of actual and attempted incidents in Nigeria dropped from 35 in 2020 to just one last year.

But attacks targeting artisanal fishers have not abated, a joint review by Pluboard and PREMIUM TIMES found.

“There is hardly a week that someone has not been attacked,” said Mr Ukutuda. “Even last week, they lost seven engines. Nothing has changed, and we are fed up.”

The victims are mostly men who fish, and also women who travel the same waters to trade smoked fish, crayfish, and other goods between coastal towns and into Cameroon. Women make up about a quarter of Nigeria’s fishing workforce. One woman told us she was kidnapped and held for weeks at a remote creek after failing to pay a ransom. “We were 27 people, and they demanded N5 million ($3,500) for each of us,” she said.

There is no official record of how many small-scale fishers and traders have been attacked in Nigeria’s waters, but testimonies from those affected show the violence is widespread. A review of news reports from 2021 found 14 recorded incidents in which 106 fishers, traders, and others were abducted, and at least three were killed. Interviews with fishermen and traders point to many more unreported attacks.

Security forces have not been spared, either. In January last year, pirates disguised in military camouflage ambushed a police marine patrol along the Oron–Calabar waterways, leaving one officer missing and two injured. In late July, just before our visit, two naval officers were shot dead at Ibaka, according to multiple independent sources. The Navy and police did not respond to requests for comment.

To understand the scale of the attacks, we visited Ibaka, Ibeno, Andoni, and Oron, interviewing more than two dozen people — fishers, traders, local leaders, security officials, and marine experts. We also examined police and naval reports, alongside reports from nongovernmental and international monitoring groups. Some of those interviewed asked for their identities to be protected; some spoke on condition of anonymity. Locals in these communities have a deep fear that outsiders could be informants for the pirates; they speak cautiously, and few agree to be recorded or photographed.

After seizing boat engines – or abducting fishers and traders – the assailants demand millions of naira in ransom. Encounters could turn deadly quickly, sometimes just a short distance from shore. Everyone we interviewed said the government has done little to respond to or curb the attacks.

“They are heavily armed, more than the security people,” one fisher, asking not to be named, said. “Last month, they killed two navy personnel; they even came into the community to abduct our people.”

A troubled sector

Artisanal fishing – small, low-tech, and largely unregulated – drives Nigeria’s ₦1.1 trillion fishing industry, supporting the livelihoods of 24 million people. But its informal model also limits the sector’s growth. Nigeria produces only a third of the 3.6 million metric tons of fish it consumes yearly; imports exceeded half a billion dollars in 2023.

The small-scale fishing has come under growing pressure from depleted stocks, fuelled by changing weather and overfishing. Illegal fishing alone, mainly by foreign and industrial trawlers, costs up to $600 million annually, while stronger storms and rising sea temperatures drive species farther out to sea.

“When we were younger, you didn’t need to go far to get fish; it was easy,” recalled Nria Friday, a middle-aged man who grew up fishing bonga, tilapia, and barracuda off the shores of Ikwuru in Andoni, Rivers State, some 86 kilometres from the state capital, Port Harcourt. “Now, everything has changed.”

Scientists warn that these changes are structural. “Rising temperature affects fish in specific ways, and stocks tend to decline,” said Isangadighe Isangadighe, head of the fisheries and aquaculture department at the University of Uyo.

Few places depict this shift better than Ibaka, which lies on the Atlantic edge of Akwa Ibom’s Mbo Local Government Area, along a busy coastal stretch about 70 nautical miles from Limbe, Cameroon. For decades, Ibaka’s shores have thrived as a hub for fishing and trade, with fleets of canoes landing daily and thousands of women moving fish across Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers State, and into Cameroon.

Fishers in that community, and those across Ibeno, Oyorokoto, and other coastal towns, now struggle with piracy, which was once focused on oil and cargo vessels in the Niger Delta. With nearshore fish depleted, venturing deeper into the ocean risks more attacks. Attacks were also reported in Utan Brama, Inua Abasi, and Ataobong.

The Fish Safety Foundation, a global non-profit, says deaths among West African fishers remain high, driven by “poor government oversight, conflict with industrial vessels, and the need for many boats to travel farther from shore than in the past to find enough fish.”

Sam Willis, the organisation’s research lead, said the risks at sea are growing – from foreign vessels, pirates, and even artisanal fishers from neighbouring countries.

“As stocks are depleted (due to both overfishing and climate change), the pressures faced by coastal communities are escalating, driving the rise in such attacks,” she told us. “Nigeria is particularly vulnerable to these issues due to its position on the equator (and subsequent impacts of climate change), its rapidly growing population (food security), and weak management of foreign fishing activities.”

“Faithful God”

Mr James started fishing as a teenager. He knows each breathing swell of the sea, the spots where bonga gather, and when the tides favour a good haul. Before the three attacks he suffered, his canoe would cross the water at dusk and return with enough catch for good money.

The first attack happened in 2020 when his engine was seized. He and his crew were near Ibeno when they were accosted by a speedboat. His engine was taken away, and he was left with a number to call for negotiations. No one answered when he tried days later.

Mr James said he sold land to buy a second engine the next year, but was attacked again. The attackers asked him to head to the Ikot Abasi area, but he gave up.

“Sometimes, they can seize up to 10 engines a day. They also collect phones and then ask you to pay millions,” he said.

A new engine goes for as much as N3 million, while a Suzuki 40-horsepower can cost up to N5 million. Unable to replace engines, many fishers abandon their boats. At the wharf, hundreds of boats lie unused. The fishers say many were abandoned after the owners lost their engines. One boat reads “Faithful God”, and another “Main A”.

The community leader, Mr Ukutuda, said that the previous week, seven engines were lost to pirates. He faulted claims that the government had responded to and addressed the problem.

“This place is very important economically, but the government does not give it attention. About 1,000 trucks of fish leave Ibaka a week,” he said. “Marine police and the Navy will say they are doing something, but they are doing nothing. We get no help.”

Women as victims

Under the hesitant afternoon sun, hundreds of women crowd into long, low-slung commercial boats, carrying bananas, crayfish, cereals, and containers of dry gin, or ufofop, ready to leave the Ibaka shore. One of the women yet to board, Rose Okon, said she would be going to Ataobong in Okobo district to sell her wares.

Women like Ms Okon shuttle Ibaka, Ataobong, Abana, Inua Abasi, and others to buy and sell at fishing communities. Last year, armed men attacked a boat she was travelling on and seized all the bags of crayfish on board. “Mine was 10 bags. They took everything,” she said. A bag sold for N250,000.

Such attacks do not always end that way. Thirty-six-year-old Inemesit (we changed her name) was a fish trader until she was attacked in 2023. While travelling the Nigeria-Cameroon corridor to buy fish, her boat was intercepted minutes after leaving the Ibaka seaport.

“The boatman suddenly claimed the engine had a fault,” she said in an interview. “Before we knew it, two other boats filled with gunmen blocked us and forced us to their creek.”

Ms Inemesit and 26 others were marched into a tarpaulin shelter on a remote island. She remained in captivity for three weeks. She said breakfast was a handful of garri shaken inside a plastic bottle with water. Lunch was bread. No dinner. Her abductors called families and fish traders’ unions in Nigeria and Cameroon to raise millions in ransom.

Her release came after her trade association bargained the kidnappers’ demands down. “They first asked for ₦5 million each,” she said. “In the end, the unions contributed. They released all of us after that.”

By then, she had lost everything – her savings, capital, and even a payment that arrived in her bank account during captivity. “They collected everything,” she said.

The ordeal ended her business. “I suffered three losses — post-harvest, the kidnapping, and then health issues. I spent everything on treatment and still borrowed. Now I don’t have capital. I only help my cousin in her small shop.”

After we spoke to Ms Inemesit the first time, she agreed to do a follow-up interview, but later turned down, uncomfortable with reliving the experience again.

Paying to fish

We asked the government in Akwa Ibom about the attacks and its policy toward the sector, but got no reply. The ministry in charge of agriculture and fisheries took our questions but did not respond.

We visited the police main office in Uyo, called and sent messages seeking details about whether attackers were arrested or prosecuted, and efforts to contain the threat, but received no response.

We also asked the Navy about the attacks, including the reported deaths of two of its personnel. We visited the naval base in Port Harcourt and contacted the headquarters in Abuja, and followed up with typed questions. Navy spokesperson Adams Aliu confirmed receipt of the questions but gave no responses.

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In the October 2024 edition of Eastern Tide, the Navy’s Eastern Command’s publication, the Navy referenced routine patrols against pirates and sea robbery but made no mention of interventions concerning small-scale fishermen. References were to large vessels and oil platforms.

In separate reports, the Navy and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) cited arrests of illegal trawlers and other suspects, but focused on large vessels. In September, NIMASA acknowledged that maritime insecurity persists, including “piracy and armed robbery,” but claimed “no recorded piracy incident in the last four years.”

We asked the agency about the attacks on fishers and traders, and received no response. Spokesperson Edward Osagie did not comment after acknowledging receipt.

To access the water safely, fishers now pay monthly “protection fees” to armed groups — between ₦30,000 and ₦80,000 per boat, depending on size. At Ibaka, contributions from more than 130 boats are pooled and sent to the militants. Those who default risk losing their engines or their lives.

“If they don’t pay, they can’t go to fish,” said Daniel Udo, a fisher and local chief at Ibeno. “They know all the boats and also have informants.”

As the humid evening dimmed, Mr James crouched over the old net he had been patching. Nearby, women haggled over the day’s catch while the sea growled in the distance.

“When I gather enough money, I will get another engine. There’s nothing else we can do,” he said.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center