Second Niger Bridge warrior? Count me out

This is an update, and republishing of something I wrote on 23 July, 2015.

On January 4, 1966, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa commissioned the Niger Bridge. It was his to be his last engagement outside Lagos as he was shot by Emmanuel Ifeajuna 11 days later.

Built by the Brits, the bridge cost £5 millions at the time, £83.2 millions or ₦34.7 billions today. To underscore how important the bridge was, Balewa was accompanied to the commissioning ceremony by a large for those days delegation that included the Federal Minister of Works and Survey Shehu Shagari, the Premier of Mid-Western Region, Dennis Osadebe. Both the Premier of the East, Michael Okpara and the governor, Francis Ibiam boycotted because of an NPC/NCNC spat. By the way, Balewa, Osadebe and Shagari paid a toll to cross the bridge both ways from Asaba to Onitsha.

Fifty years have passed since that ceremony, and Nigeria hasn’t built a second bridge AT THAT POINT across the river.

For the sake of accuracy, we MUST correct this impression that there is no second bridge across the River Niger. In Nigeria, there are bridges at Asaba, Lokoja, Ajaokuta and two bridges at Jebba, one rail, one road. If we want to be pedantic, we can count the bridge across the Forcados River at Patani to the count.

This is embarrassing.

The River Niger flows through our country for hundreds of kilometres, bisects our country in two, and we have only 5 bridges across. Then we want people to believe that we are serious?

At the very least we should have no less than 16 bridges across the rivers Niger and Benue. We need a bridge linking Kebbi and Niger states around Yelwa. That is prime agricultural territory that is wasting away, and the current Yelwa-Mokwa road simply does not cut it.

The Kainji Road which runs parallel to the dam’s reservoir is criminally neglected given the importance of that area to the country. Going downstream, the bridge at Jebba needs rehabilitation, and in my view, a bit of an upgrade.

Does any of you know that there is a monument to Richard Lander and Mungo Park there? Heck how many of you remember who these gentlemen were? Ever heard of Juju Rock?

Going further down, we need to build a road that links Bida in Niger State with Lafiagi in Kwara. Road? Rail-road? Preferably rail. This will open up those areas and get them productive. In the 1970s we had grandiose plans for a bridge taking off at Pategi in Kwara. I don’t have too many complaints about the bridge just outside of Lokoja, though I think there should be a second one.

I have never crossed the bridge at Ajaokuta so I cannot say what the condition is currently. I was told on a visit to Kogi in early 2015 that coal carrying trucks cross the bridge at Ajaokuta. I’ll reserve further comment on that, but downstream at Agenegbode and Idah is a crime against humanity. There is no bridge there. These towns, important in Edo and Kogi states respectively, could very easily have boomed if there was a bridge connecting them.

In my view, going further south, given the importance of both Asaba and Onitsha, there should be at least three bridges across here. The current one; one taking off from around Mission Road in Onitsha to terminate at Cable Point in Asaba. Then the third should take off at, well, at the location where that construction that we are not sure is.

Finally, as the Niger snakes south, why can’t we throw in another bridge to link Ndoni in Rivers and Aboh in Delta? Afterall, back in the day, the peoples of both Aboh and Ndoni used to row across to trade, play and inter-marry. These days they look at each other and pretend that they don’t share common ancestors?

This is just River Niger, I haven’t travelled the path of the Benue as thoroughly, so I’ll keep my dirty mouth shut. But imagine the kind of employment the associated road and bridge construction would create? Imagine the knock on effects? Imagine the opening up of areas previously untapped? Imagine the shortening of travel times which will have an effect on the price of tomatoes in Lagos?

But because we are too lazy to build a few bleeding bridges, we remain sitting by the banks of the Niger washing our hands with saliva!

Our legislators are too lazy to remove such things from being an entirely government preserve, so that private investors can build bridges to get to places where they want to set up industry.

No, I’m not a Second Niger Bridge warrior, that is too unimaginative. I am a Sixteen Niger Bridge Warrior!