On 10th September 2009, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FG) launched a 36 billion Naira project to dredge 572 kilometres of the lower Niger river. President Umaru Yaradua was quick to mention that this is merely the first phase of the project and a further phase to dredge the upper Niger/Benue rivers would commence immediately with express appropriation of funds.
In view of the overuse and inadequacy of our road network and the virtual absence of a rail system, it is certainly important to have a working inland waterway system.
This piece is however not about the tragedy that is the Nigerian transportation system. It is focused on a much sadder, but typical misfortune of the Nigerian polity.

For over six years now, the Cross Rivers State Government has expended a lot of effort, funds and initiative to develop the very laudable Tinapa project and Free Trade Zone. The project was initiated by the Donald Duke administration. It was finally formally launched by then president Olusegun Obasanjo on the eve of his departure from office in 2007. It is a sad travesty that this laudable project has since come to a virtual standstill and even seems to be on a reversal ever since the Yaradua administration came on board. There have been several clearly deliberate administrative bottlenecks placed on the way of the successful take-off of the Tinapa project by the Northern dominated Nigerian Customs Service. On the operational side, a further major setback for the take-off of the project is the refusal of the FG to dredge the Calabar Port which is less than 2 kilometres in length and which is directly linked to the very important Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of Guinea. It is a sad spectacle of ethnic and sectional bias to now see the same FG expend so many billions of Naira to dredge a river for a distance as long as 572 kilometres!! with the promise of funding for further dredging for many hundreds of kilometers more, while ignoring the dredging of a Port adjoining the Atlantic ocean which will not extend for up to 2 kilometres (less than 280 times the length of the lower Niger project!) and which is holding up an even bigger project that has already gulped millions of Dollars by local and international investors.
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It is obvious that the reason the FG has ignored the dredging of the Calabar Port while treating the much more expensive dredging of the River Niger with such urgency is that while the lower and upper River Niger project will boost Northern economic interests as its main catchment areas, the Calabar Port and Tinapa project will have its catchment area in the south, an area which is clearly not of interest to the FG of the North. This satanic trend of holding back the drive, initiative, and natural growth of the south to enhance the relative development of the north has been the true curse of the travesty of a Nation called Nigeria for close to fifty years already. It certainly qualifies as a crime against humanity.

It is not enough to keep dismissing the very blatant bias for the North at the expense of the South in Nigeria on paper and by mouth, while carrying out clearly unfair, biased and cruel acts of deliberate underdevelopment and stunting of the South in practice. The examples are far too many to discount and the refusal to dredge the Calabar Port or expedite the long overdue take-off of the Tinapa project is one more of several disgraces to the Yaradua FG of the North.
In conclusion, dishonourable mention must also be made of the pathetic Governors of some of these southern states who betray their own people and conscience by keeping silent in the face of such heartless tyranny. Liyel Imoke ought to be ashamed of himself. That is if he still actually has any shame or conscience.