The people of Osse-motto in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State said they were excited to see that the Federal Government has remembered to resuscitate the Oguta river port in their area.
Southeast Voice was in Ossemotto where the Managing Director of the National Inland, Waterways, Authority, NIWA, George Moghalu and his team came to the port with the aim to reviving the abandoned river port.
I said their visit to have spurred the traditional ruler of the host community, Eze Franklin Okafor, and other community leaders to embrace the idea of reviving the Oguta port.
The jubilant members of the community said they have been encouraged, that all hope has not been lost and called on the government to ensure that they put their words into action.
They recalled how several visits in the past have yielded none positive efforts regarding the struggle to bring back to life the abandoned port. In their story, they narrated how the port was beneficial to people from all over the country coming to do various businesses, especially that of palm oil business.
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Some also said that from the Oguta river port, it was easier for people to export their products. Eze of the host community, Franklin Okafor, who spoke briefly while receiving Mohaglu and his members said:
“I am thrilled today to see this team. God has a purpose for this appointment given to you. Everybody in Ossemotto is happy with you that something good is about to happen. This is one of the good things we expect that will happen in Igboland.
The contractor that is doing this Oguta port project, Ogbuagu Gogo Wakuche, is a trusted son of our land and we believe in him for this project.I want to say, developing the seaport is a development for the entire Nigeria. It will bring peace and progress in the land.”
Another community leader, Henry Okafor, who has been in the know of the happenings in the Oguta port said: “In the past, when we brought palm oil, many companies would come here and buy them off and keep in their various warehouses and finally, load them into their vessels and these vessels would now move towards Rivers State and to the larger sea and then transloaded possibly to Europe.
“As of then, we had so many Igbo top businessmen from other states who had their warehouses here.
They were buying and selling to the white people. So, when the palm oil business collapsed, it affected the port. “Yar’Adua saw reasons inland waterways should be developed. The inland waterways are the waterways that connect the states to the high sea.
For us to mitigate the traffic on our roads, it became necessary to have our inland water ways functional in different places and vessels could carry more goods compared to other means of transportation.
This all started in 2009 during the time of Yar’ Adua.” On the issue of vandals, he said: “I said two things, what causes vandalization made by man and the other made by natural disasters.
If you abandon a house for a very long time, termites and other things will destroy them. If the breeze blows, it uproots the roof. Do you know if you are not living in a house, it is easy for breeze to turn off the roofs.
“The other one is that people can trek into that place and steal some things. Over eighty percent of vandalization was simply because it was abandoned.
The man-made could have like ten percent; some people will go there and steal roofs or something like that.” Reacting, the NIWA, Managing Director, Moghalu, recalled that in the 50s, vessels from Liverpool and other countries arrived at the Oguta river port to do businesses but he was not happy that the port was no longer functional to encourage economic activities.
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