President Muhammadu Buhari was lauded on Friday by the highest Igbo sociocultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, for maintaining his word to complete the Second Niger Bridge before the end of his term.
Following the brief reopening of the Second Niger Bridge to traffic for this holiday season, Ohanaeze said in a statement that the bridge remained a crucial piece of national infrastructure with enormous socioeconomic benefits for the entire country as well as the contiguous states.
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In a statement issued by Ohanaeze and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, on Friday, the organization claimed that the demand for a second Niger bridge began to grow immediately during the Nigerian Civil War.
The statement partly read;
On assumption of office as the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Prof. George Obiozor in company of several APC government officials on February 6, 2021 visited the site wherein he remarked that the “people of the South-East would continue to be grateful to the present Federal Government for hearkening to the needs of the Ndigbo.
Several administrations had used the Second Niger Bridge as bait on the Igbo, especially during the political campaigns. When President Buhari promised that he will complete the second Niger Bridge, not many believed, especially when he could not conceal his lopsided political appointments and other resource allocations against the South East.
A few days ago, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), disclosed that the Second Niger Bridge would be open to traffic from December 15, 2022, to January 15, 2023, to ease the experience of travellers during the Yuletide break. And so, it has come.
Surely, President Buhari did not start the work on the bridge, but in a country where the abandoned projects far outnumber the completed ones, vital infrastructure that should have been taken for granted are celebrated.
While the Ohanaeze Ndigbo-led by Obiozor immensely appreciates Mr President on the Second Niger Bridge, it is hoped that Mr. President would use the remaining few months in office to pursue some other transcendental objectives which will write his name with gold in the sands of time.
