By Charles Obinna Chukwunaru, PhD, a contributor to USAfrica
The federal government of Nigeria announced the partial opening of the second Niger bridge on December 15, 2022. The call for the construction of the second Niger bridge which connects Eastern Nigeria to Western Nigeria and the rest of the country was muted since the end of the Eastern Nigeria/Biafra – Nigeria war in 1970.
Since that era, successive civilian and military administrations in Nigeria failed to do anything about it until Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (from the former Eastern Nigeria) accidentally came to power as President of Nigeria following the death of his erstwhile boss President Umaru Yar’dua on May 5, 2010. It is important to note that the administration of President Jonathan commenced the construction of the bridge before it got kicked out by the present administration in 2015.
However, the project got subjected to all kinds of diabolical political, economic and social manipulation since President Buhari took over from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Sadly, the implications of the toll gates on the road leading up to the bridge under construction is that the second Niger bridge would go down as the only federal road in Nigeria with toll gates when it is finally commissioned, just Eastern Nigeria would be the only region on the federal highway network with toll gates; meaning that the people of Eastern Nigeria would have to pay tax to the federal government of Nigeria whenever they wish to go home, as well as other private and commercial road users. The economic consequences of this situation on the people and business activities in Eastern Nigeria, in the midst of abject poverty, are too numerous to mention here.
Further, I note that the height of the bridge is so low that a standard vessel cannot sail beneath the bridge across the ever busy commercial coast of Igboland – Onitsha and Asaba.
Why is this still happening to Eastern Nigeria fifty-two years after the Nigeria – Eastern Nigeria/Biafra civil war? Your guess is as good as mine – blantant continuation of the post civil war federal government policy of social, political and economic strangulation of Eastern Nigeria How long will this continue?
– Chukwunaru is President of the Eastern Nigeria Development Association
(ENDA)
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