By Barrister Aguiyi Joseph Obinna
Dr. Abubakar Alkali’s recent article, “A Call for the Dredging of River Niger to Baro Port,” presents itself as a clarion call for northern economic salvation. However, a closer examination reveals it as a suggestion deeply rooted in a false ideology locked in mortal combat with the very idea of building one prosperous Nigerian nation. Rather than offering a forward-looking economic blueprint, Dr. Alkali’s piece reads like a consumptive manifesto that prioritizes political horse-trading over sustainable productivity. It reduces national development to a zero-sum regional transaction, demanding the dredging of River Niger to Baro Port as a precondition for northern votes in 2027. This is less an economic ideology and more a political hit job, lacking empirical rigor or basic SWOT analysis.
The article’s central thesis – that dredging Baro Port will magically resolve 85% of northern multidimensional poverty – ignores fundamental economic realities. It mirrors the ill-fated approach of the previous administration under President Muhammadu Buhari, which poured millions in taxes and loans into the fruitless search for oil in the northern savanna. That venture failed not because of malice, but because it chased geological fantasies instead of leveraging existing comparative advantages. Similarly, Dr. Alkali’s push for an artificial seaport in the North treats imports as the pathway to prosperity. This is a consumption strategy, not a productive one. True economic power does not come from easier access to imported goods but from building internal capacity to produce and export value-added commodities.
Nigeria’s South did not escape relative poverty through tariffs on imports alone or by demanding artificial infrastructure. Southern progress, however imperfect, stems from entrepreneurial drive, investment in human capital, and the strategic utilization of coastal advantages for genuine trade. The North, by contrast, possesses something far more valuable than petroleum: a vast, fertile land mass that dwarfs the oil reserves in economic potential. This agricultural heartland, if properly harnessed through modern farming techniques, irrigation, value addition, and agro-processing industries, could feed not just Nigeria but much of West Africa. Yet Dr. Alkali’s article fixates on seaports and imports, sidelining this God-given endowment.
A glaring omission in the piece is the failure to acknowledge the North’s existing infrastructural assets, particularly its dense railway network. Historical railway concentration in the North – legacies of colonial and post-independence planning – provides a ready backbone for industrialization and agricultural revolution. Instead of expending scarce resources on dredging a river whose economic viability remains questionable in an era of multimodal transport and climate challenges, northern leaders should prioritize rehabilitating and expanding these railways. Efficient rail transport would slash logistics costs for agricultural produce, attract manufacturing hubs near farmlands, and facilitate the movement of goods to southern markets without destroying highways with heavy trucks. This represents a genuine SWOT-aligned strategy: exploiting strengths (land and rail) while addressing weaknesses (insecurity and low productivity), rather than emotional appeals to “economic power balance.”
Dr. Alkali’s narrative also indulges in dangerous regional politics. By framing development as a South versus North contest and attacking President Tinubu’s Lagos-focused port investments, the article fuels division at a time when Nigeria desperately needs unity. Poverty statistics cited – 90% in the North versus 21% in the South – are indeed alarming, but weaponizing them for electoral blackmail solves nothing. True northern saviors, as the late Sardauna exemplified, focused on education, agriculture, and disciplined governance rather than perpetual victimhood or power shifts. Late President Yar’Adua’s efforts on Baro Port deserve commendation, but turning an incomplete project into a 2027 electoral ultimatum to Atiku Abubakar reduces statesmanship to transactionalism.
I respectfully urge Dr. Alkali to desist from emotional and sectional politics in his public interventions. As a public intellectual, he should champion pan-Nigerian solutions. Northern prosperity will not come from dredging rivers or signing secret agreements with presidential candidates. It will emerge from deliberate policies that industrialize the region using its railways, mechanize its expansive farmlands, combat insecurity to attract investment, and foster genuine private sector growth. Nigeria’s future lies not in balancing political power or economic power between regions through artificial means, but in creating a single, competitive national economy where every zone contributes according to its strengths.
The North’s large fertile lands and railway heritage are superior assets to petroleum dependency. Let us build upon them productively. Regional agitation has never built great nations; visionary, evidence-based policies have. Nigeria needs more ideas rooted in empirical reality, not consumptive fantasies dressed as economic advocacy.
Leave a Reply