Ohanaeze Ndigbo congratulates Buhari on Second Niger Bridge

Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, has praised President Muhammadu Buhari for keeping his promise to complete the Second Niger Bridge before the end of his tenure.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo said in a statement yesterday that the Second Niger Bridge is a critical national infrastructure with enormous socioeconomic benefits not only for the contiguous states but also for the entire nation.

In a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Alexander Ogbonnia, the group recalled that the need for a Second Niger Bridge arose shortly after the Nigerian Civil War.

“The first Niger Bridge was commissioned in 1965, and shortly thereafter, the Nigerian civil war broke out in 1967,” he added. As a result, the bridge was not immune to the war’s devastation.

“The Second Niger Bridge has been a major concern to the Igbo for over 50 years because of two major reasons; apart from the traffic logjam on top of the bridge, the greatest fear was that the bridge had evidence of cracks such that the stress of weights on the bridge could collapse all the vehicles and their contents into the River Niger with untold consequences.

“Based on the general clamour for a Second Niger Bridge, the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, in 1992, challenged Nigerian engineers to come up with a design of the second bridge. It was hoped that once completed, the bridge would ease traffic flow, allay commuter fears, improve road safety, and boost commuter confidence.”

He recalled that several administrations had used the Second Niger Bridge as a political enticement to the Igbo.

“When President Buhari promised to finish the Second Niger Bridge, few believed him, especially given his lopsided political appointments and other resource allocations against the South East,” he said.

He revealed that on February 6, 2021, the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, accompanied by several All Progressives Congress (APC) government officials, visited the site and enthused that the ‘people of the Southeast would continue to be grateful to the current Federal Government for hearing the needs of the Ndigbo.’

“And we’re almost there now. Certainly, President Buhari did not initiate construction of the bridge, but “in a maladjusted society where abandoned projects outnumber completed ones, to deliver a vital infrastructure that should have been taken for granted attracts immense jubilation among the Igbo,” he said.

Ogbonnia congratulated the President on the Second Niger Bridge, hoping that he will use his remaining months in office to pursue some other transcendental goals that will etch his name in gold in the sands of time.