The River Niger Bridge, also known as Onitsha Bridge, serves as a vital link between the southeastern and southwestern regions of Nigeria, traversing the Niger River. Located in Onitsha, Anambra State, it connects to Asaba, Delta State.
The bridge has two lanes and a pedestrian walkway and is often congested with traffic and informal traders.
Construction and Design
Feasibility studies and design considerations on the possibility of constructing a bridge across the River Niger from Asaba to Onitsha were carried out by the Netherlands Engineering Consultants of The Hague, Holland (NEDECO) in the 1950s.
Between 1964 and 1965, Dumez Engineering, a French construction firm, constructed the Niger Bridge, to link Onitsha and Asaba in present-day Anambra and Delta States respectively at an estimated cost of £6.75 million.
After its completion, the bridge was eight by four hundred and twenty feet (8×420 ft.) with a carriageway of 36 feet centre-truss and a pedestrian walkway on both sides of the carriageway. It was commissioned by the then Prime Minister the late Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and opened for traffic in December 1965.
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At the time the Niger Bridge was being built, Nigeria’s economy was predominantly agricultural; as a result, the bridge served as a means of transporting various agricultural products.
Historical Significance
During the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 - 1970, in an attempt to halt the Nigerian military advance, retreating Biafran soldiers destroyed the River Niger Bridge at Onitsha, trapping the Nigerians on the other side of the river.
To date, millions of people travel daily from Asaba, Delta State’s capital, to Onitsha and back via the iconic River Niger Bridge, which has become a symbol of national enterprise.
The Second Niger Bridge
The phrase Second Niger Bridge, may sound misleading as there are already seven major bridges over the Niger in Nigeria alone (not to mention in countries like Niger or Benin). The Second Niger Bridge crosses the Niger between the cities of Asaba the capital of Delta State which is rich in oil in the west and Onitsha in the east.
When completed, it will be the last bridge over the Niger River before it branches into its delta arms. The Niger also separates Nigeria's populous southwest from the oil-rich southeast.
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The Niger is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo. It moves 7,000 m3/s water at Onitsha, which is more than a hundred times as much as the Thames in London (65 m3/s) and almost three times as much as the Missouri river (2,450 m3/s) before reaching St. Louis.
In 1987, after warning about the state of the existing River Niger Bridge by the then Minister for Works and Housing Abubakar Umar, General Ibrahim Babangida challenged the local engineers to design The Second Niger Bridge, rising to the challenge, The Nigerian Society of Engineers called NSE Prems Limited, which subsequently delivered a masterplan. Under the subsequent military governments, the projects received little attention.
What to know about the ₦414bn Second Niger Bridge
Upon the return to civilian rule, President Olusegun Obasanjo promised to deliver a second Niger River bridge. The incoming administration effectively inherited a ₦58.6 billion proposed cost for a six lane, 1.8 km tolled bridge, which was to be completed in three-and-half years. The bridge was to be financed under a public private partnership (PPP) with 60 per cent of the funding coming from the contractor, Gitto Group; 20 per cent from the Federal Government of Nigeria, and 10 per cent from the Anambra and Delta State Governments.
However, in August 2012, the Federal Executive Council under Jonathan's administration, approved a contract worth ₦325 million for the final planning and design of the bridge. During the 2011 Nigerian general election campaign period, Jonathan has promised that if elected, he would deliver the project before the end of his term in 2015.
The project was funded through the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) created by President Muhammadu Buhari and managed by the NSIA. The structure, 1,590 m long in total, consists of two parallel prestressed concrete box girder bridges, each 14.5 m wide. The current bridges will have a length of 630 m with 5 spans with span widths of 150 m maximum. The western ramp bridge will be 755 m long and the eastern ramp bridge will be 205 m long.
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On December 15, 2022, at 9:50 local time, the bridge was opened to local traffic. Since not all connecting roads have been completed yet, makeshift roads have been created to allow the bridge to be used during the Christmas holidays.
Concerns about the bridge
The holiday season in Nigeria is a period when people travel, especially from the city to the countryside to celebrate with relations. At such periods as in other times, the bridge carries stationary loads far beyond its capacity for many hours and sometimes days as traffic builds up on the structure from both ends.
Chinasa Okorie in The Second Niger Bridge (The Guardian, July 21, 2008 ) answers thus: “In the unlikely event that this is the case, may I inform them that apart from the South East, parts of the South South, North Central and North East are major users of the Niger Bridge. In the event that the existing bridge collapses, the economy of the entire country would be affected, as the movement of goods and services will be severely disrupted.”
The Guardian Editorial of Friday, July 11, 2008, Before the Niger Bridge Collapses, narrated the testimony of the Permanent Secretary in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works, Dr. Hakeem Baba Ahmed. “Dr. Ahmed was testifying before the Senate ad-hoc committee probing the utilisation of funds allocated to the transport sector under the Obasanjo administration when he bemoaned the virtual lack of maintenance of the bridge which has placed it at the brink of collapse.”
The Punch in Reps Order Rehabilitation of Niger Bridge (Thursday, 10 Jul 2008 ) carried the story of the resolution of the House of Representatives mandating the government to begin work on the second Niger Bridge.
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