OK, I admit
I am presently jobless and bored

Gives me the time for my favorite pasttime -daydreaming
(Like one chick once told me "you spend too much time within your head )

Introduction
I'd like to start a series of articles I;ll call future View. Its my fast forward thinking on Nigeria as it could be and might be.

This article will merge the disciplines of geography and politics

The source of rivers are usually found in mountains and hills
1) it could be as a result of melting snow formed at the top of the mountains
2)Rain collected at the top of the mountain
3) or streams/fountains gushing out of hills and mountains due to some form of pull (I don forget the term)

The way #3 works is something like this
The weight of the mountain pushes hard against groundwaters and aquifers
This cause pressure to build up
The underground waters thus make their way up (much like sucking on a straw) and soon carve a path in the rocks were they can gush out
Moses striking the rock and thinz


(kai I don dey forget my geography. I hope I am not misinforming anyone ooo)

Nigeria has two major rivers: Niger and Benue

Whereas the Source of the Benue river is at the Adamawa plateau
which is accesible and almost wholly in Nigeria

The source of River Niger is in the Guinea highlands (consisting of Fouta Djallon hills)
Fouta Djallon is located in Guinea. Only a small part of the Guinea highlands is located in Nigeria (Jos plateaus)

The river Niger provides an avenue for water transportation, fishing and irrigation to the parts of Nigeria it cuts through
It also hosts the Kainji dam a major hydroelectricty facility

The core noth has always eyed the dredging of the river niger to provide a gateway from the hintherlands unto the atlantic

Wikipedia suggests that that course that the river Niger takes
all the way from the guinea highlands to the Niger delta has baffled scientists for a long time
This is because The source of river niger is actually very close to the atlantic
if it were to go through countries like Guinea and Sierra Leons

(refer to the map showing river niger)

Scenario:

-Guinea builds a canal (like the suez canal) channeling most of river niger directly into its part of the atlantic

a)This would cause chronic power shortages in Nigeria, shutting down industries and ruining nigerian economy
b) This would end the dream of the core north to gain access to river Niger
c) the way of life of thousands if not millions depending on river niger will be destroyed

Mitigation:

-Nigeria should have to permeanently influence regional politics and ensure its intelligence network is deeply embedded in the Guinean government (much like what Shell has done to our government)
-Nigeria might have to carry out pre-emtive air strikes (much like Israels hubby)on canal development location efforts if Guinea attempts this feat
-Nigera would have to maximize the AU and ECOWAS diplomacy in ensuring that Guinea never dreams of redirecting the river Niger



Emmmmm... in case Jonatan's Israeli cyber company has started their information gathering initiative. please note say dis is only a figment of my imagination. No report me to American embassy abeg oooo. I be christian, even my grand papa na christian

^^
Hardly likely that Guinea would show any serious initiative on their own. Aren't they run by a military junta at present?

Many of the states in West Africa are more interested in handouts from Big Brother Nigeria, rather than any serious positioning. Even Cote D'Ivoire which was reasonably positioned by Houphet-Boigny seems to have headed down the track of decline. Never mind Ghana, the small and paranoid nation (not my words entirely).

Nigeria is probably the only nation that would do something like that. For what it's what, we're the only country in West Africa that can pony up the cash for such a project.

They wont now
but considering the new push by China vs the West, u never can tell
one of the world super powers might just decide to get dirty
and use the creation of a channel redirecting River Niger as a bargaining chip
Much like North Korea does with its Nuclear bomb threats

esere826: They wont now
but considering the new push by China vs the West, u never can tell
one of the world super powers might just decide to get dirty
and use the creation of a channel redirecting River Niger as a bargaining chip
Much like North Korea does with its Nuclear bomb threats

Unfortunately, Africa is largely seen as a farm for resources by both the West and China.
It's not strategically located for them.

Interesting that Egypt and Ethiopia are facing similar issues on utilization of river Nile
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/ethiopia-rejects-egyptian-protests-nile-dam