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50-647: 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 is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo . It moves 7,000 m/s water at Onitsha, which is more than

100-542: A flow near the mouth of the river standing at 177.0 km /year before the 1980s and 147.3 km /year during the 1980s. The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river, a boomerang shape that baffled geographers for two centuries. Its source ( Tembakounda ) is 240 km (150 mi) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river runs directly away from the sea into the Sahara Desert , then takes

150-543: A gubernatorial campaign rally. Politicians and police said that the campaign of violence aimed to disrupt the election. There had been bombings and shootings in the north blamed on Boko Haram since 2009, intensifying during 2010. On 1 October 2010, the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta", a militant group, claimed responsibility for dual car bombings during Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary celebrations in

200-613: A hundred times as much as the Thames in London (65 m/s) and almost three times as much as the Missouri river (2,450 m/s) before reaching St. Louis . The Niger also separates Nigeria's populous southwest from the oil-rich southeast. The currently only bridge at Onitsha, a 1960s steel truss structure with two lanes, is hopelessly overloaded, due in no small part to the fact that it must accommodate flying traders, handcart drivers, cargo-carrying people and

250-509: A key origin and destination for trans-Saharan trade , fueling the wealth of great empires such as the Ghana , Mali, and Songhai Empires . Major trading ports along the river, including Timbuktu and Gao, became centers of learning and culture. Trade to the Niger bend region also brought Islam to the region in approximately the 14th century CE. Much of the northern Niger basin remains Muslim today, although

300-511: A maze of streams and swamps that did not look like the head of a great river. He died in 1806 on a second expedition attempting to prove the Niger-Congo connection. The theory became the leading one in Europe. Several failed expeditions followed; however the mystery of the Niger would not be solved for another 25 years, in 1830, when Richard Lander and his brother became the first Europeans to follow

350-401: A northerner or southerner should be allowed to become president given the tradition of rotating the top office between the north and the south after the death of Umaru Yar'Adua , a northerner, when Goodluck Jonathan , another southerner assumed the interim presidency. Immediately after the election widespread violence erupted in the northern, Muslim parts of the country. Jonathan was declared

400-452: A sharp right turn near the ancient city of Timbuktu and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea . This strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. The upper Niger, from the source west of Timbuktu to the bend in the current river near Timbuktu , once emptied into a now dry lake to the east northeast of Timbuktu, while the lower Niger started to

450-620: A tenth as much sediment as the Nile because the Niger's headwaters lie in ancient rocks that provide little silt . Like the Nile, the Niger floods yearly; this begins in September, peaks in November, and finishes by May. An unusual feature of the river is the Inner Niger Delta , which forms where its gradient suddenly decreases. The result is a region of braided streams , marshes , and large lakes;

500-530: Is the main river of West Africa , extending about 4,180 kilometres (2,600 miles). Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km (817,600 sq mi) in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali , Niger , on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria , discharging through a massive delta , known as

550-519: Is then joined by various tributaries but also loses more water to evaporation. The quantity of water entering Nigeria was estimated at 25 km /year before the 1980s and at 13.5 km /year during the 1980s. The most important tributary is the Benue River which merges with the Niger at Lokoja in Nigeria. The total volume of tributaries in Nigeria is six times higher than the inflow into Nigeria, with

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600-605: The Anambra and Delta State Governments. Unfortunately the subsequent death of President Yar'adua marred the progress of the project. 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

650-492: The Kainji Dam , Shiroro Dam , Zungeru Dam , and Jebba Dam are used to generate hydropower. The water resources of the Niger River are under pressure because of increased water abstraction for irrigation. The construction of dams for hydropower generation is underway or envisaged in order to alleviate chronic power shortages in the countries of the Niger basin. The FAO estimates the irrigation potential of all countries in

700-755: The Niger Delta , into the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean . The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded by the Nile and the Congo River . Its main tributary is the Benue River . The Niger has different names in the different languages of the region: The earliest use of the name "Niger" for the river is by Leo Africanus in his Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che ivi sono , published in Italian in 1550. Nevertheless, "Nigris"

750-586: The "upper", "lower" and "middle" Niger river basin during the Scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century. As part of the West Africa Sahel region, Niger River has a hot climate characterized by very high temperatures year-round; a long, intense dry season from October–May; and a brief, irregular rainy season linked to the West African monsoon. The Niger River is a relatively clear river, carrying only

800-553: The NSIA. PIDF was also used to fund the construction of Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-Road For the almost completed bridge (as of June 2022), 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

850-501: The Niger River region, including yams , African rice ( Oryza glaberrima ), and pearl millet . The Sahara aridification may have triggered, or at least accelerated, these domestications. Agriculture, as well as fishing and animal husbandry, led to the rise of settlements like Djenné-Djenno in the Inner Delta, now a World Heritage Site . The region of the Niger bend, in the Sahel , was

900-613: The Niger river basin at 2.8 million hectares. Only 0.93m hectares (ha) were under irrigation in the late 1980s. The irrigation potential was estimated at 1.68m ha in Nigeria 0.56m ha in Mali, and the actual irrigated area was 0.67m ha and 0.19m ha. 2011 Nigerian presidential election Goodluck Jonathan (Acting) PDP Goodluck Jonathan PDP Presidential elections were held in Nigeria on 16 April 2011, postponed from 9 April 2011. The election followed controversy as to whether

950-584: The Nile, a notion which persisted in the Arab and European worlds – and further added the Senegal River as the "Ger" – until the 19th century. While the true course of the Niger was presumably known to locals, it was a mystery to the outside world until the late 18th century. The connection to the Nile River was made not simply because this was then known as the great river of " Aethiopia " (by which all lands south of

1000-521: The basin rainfall in the basin (mm) Hydrometric stations on the Niger River kilometer (rkm) (m) (km ) start Average, minimum and maximum discharge of the Niger River at Koulikoro (Upper Niger), Niamey (Middle Niger) and Lokoja (Lower Niger). Period from 2000/06/01 to 2024/05/31. Average discharge of the Niger River at Niger Delta (period from 2010 to 2018): Niger River at Lokoja average, minimum and maximum discharge (1946 to 2023): The main tributaries from

1050-531: The bridge to be used during the Christmas holidays. Crossing the bridge is free of charge for the time being. 6°07′12″N 6°45′18″E  /  6.1199°N 6.7550°E  / 6.1199; 6.7550 Niger River This is an accepted version of this page (Period: 1971–2000)7,922.3 m /s (279,770 cu ft/s) The Niger River ( / ˈ n aɪ dʒ ər / NY -jər ; French : (le) fleuve Niger [(lə) flœv niʒɛʁ] )

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1100-510: The capital that had killed at least 12. On Christmas Eve, 24 December 2010 a series of bombs went off in villages near Jos , the main city of the Plateau state, killing 32 people and leaving 74 others in critical condition, and on 31 December 2010 a bomb exploded in an open-air beer garden and market at army barracks in Abuja , killing at least four and wounding at least 21. The elections was reported in

1150-512: The centre of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao . The surrounding Niger River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the Sudan province, which in turn is part of the larger African massive physiographic division. The Niger River basin, located in western Africa , covers 7.5% of the continent and spreads over ten countries. Niger River basin: areas and rainfall by country within

1200-542: The course of the Niger to the ocean. In 1946, three Frenchmen, Jean Sauvy, Pierre Ponty and movie maker Jean Rouch , former civil servants in the African French colonies , set out to travel the entire length of the river, as no one else seemed to have done previously. They travelled from the beginning of the river near Kissidougou in Guinea, walking at first till a raft could be used, then changing to various local crafts as

1250-532: The desert were called by Classical writers), but because the Nile like the Niger flooded every summer. Through the descriptions of Leo Africanus and even Ibn Battuta – despite his visit to the river – the myth connecting the Niger to the Nile persisted. Many European expeditions to plot the river were unsuccessful. In 1788 the African Association was formed in England to promote the exploration of Africa in

1300-458: The eastern ramp bridge will be 205 m long. The bridge has been constructed using the cantilever method , while the ramp bridges will be constructed using the incremental launching method. The Second Niger Bridge was first proposed during the 1958/69 political campaign by then candidate Shehu Francis pastor of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). In 1987, after warning about the state of

1350-465: The end of Babangida 's administration stalled the plan. Under the subsequent military governments , the projects received little attention. Upon the return to civilian rule, President Olusegun Obasanjo promised to deliver a second Niger River bridge. However his administration did not carry out any major activity on the project until five days before he handed over to the then incoming administration of Umaru Musa Yar'Adua , when Obasanjo flagged off

1400-415: 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. The addition of east–west railway line to the project, unfortunately the turmoil that precipitated

1450-549: The hopes of locating the Niger, and in June 1796 the Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first European to lay eyes on the middle portion of the river since antiquity (and perhaps ever). He wrote an account in 1799, Travels in the Interior of Africa . Park proposed a theory that the Niger and Congo were the same river. Although the Niger Delta would seem like an obvious candidate, it was

1500-653: The international media as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud in contrast to previous elections, in particular the widely disputed 2007 election . Indeed, at least one observer pronounced them the most smoothly run elections held since the restoration of democracy 12 years earlier. The United States State Department said the election was "successful" and a "substantial improvement" over 2007, although it added that vote rigging and fraud also took place. The Guardian also noted that irregularities, such as underage voting and snatching of ballot boxes were reported. Buhari claimed that his supporters in

1550-553: The lower reaches in modern Nigeria , as these were not recognized at the time as being the same river. When European colonial powers began to send ships along the west coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Senegal River was often postulated to be the seaward end of the Niger. The Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of distributaries along more than 160 kilometres (100 mi),

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1600-548: The mouth: tributary tributary (km) (km ) (m /s) At the end of the African humid period around 5,500 years before present, the modern Sahara Desert, once a savanna , underwent desertification . As plant species sharply declined, humans migrated to the fertile Niger River bend region, with abundant resources including plants for grazing and fish. Like in the Fertile Crescent , many food crops were domesticated in

1650-601: The occasional herd of goats in addition to (and between ) cars. 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 ). It is therefore also known as the Second Onitsha Bridge . The project was funded through the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) created by President Muhammadu Buhari and managed by

1700-507: The presidential race to avoid being rubbished by a non-General. In September 2010, the election commission requested a postponement of the polls citing the need for more time to overhaul the national electoral register. Critics were upset over the proposal. The election was postponed from January to April 2011 due to the release of a new electronic voter registration software. In December 2010, bombs went off in Yenegoa , Bayelsa State during

1750-563: The project before the end of his term in 2015. At an Onitsha town hall meeting on August 30, 2012, he promised to go into exile if he did not deliver on the project by 2015. The rigmarole continued under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, who first cancelled the earlier contract in August 2015. 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

1800-525: The project in Asaba . 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

1850-495: The river Ger) might well come from the Berber phrase gr-n-grwn meaning "river of rivers", as the current Tuareg name for the river Niger. As Timbuktu was the southern end of the principal Trans-Saharan trade route to the western Mediterranean , it was the source of most European knowledge of the region. Medieval European maps applied the name Niger to the middle reaches of the river, in modern Mali, but Quorra ( Kworra ) to

1900-512: The river broadened and changed. Two of them reached the ocean on March 25, 1947, with Ponty having left the expedition at Niamey , somewhat past the halfway mark. They carried a 16mm movie camera , the resulting footage giving Rouch his first two ethnographic documentaries: "Au pays des mages noirs", and "La chasse à l’hippopotame". A camera was used to illustrate Rouch's subsequent book "Le Niger En Pirogue" (Fernand Nathan, 1954), as well as Sauvy's "Descente du Niger" (L'Harmattan, 2001). A typewriter

1950-534: The seasonal floods make the Delta extremely productive for both fishing and agriculture. The river loses nearly two-thirds of its potential flow in the Inner Delta between Ségou and Timbuktu to seepage and evaporation. The water from the Bani River , which flows into the Delta at Mopti , does not compensate for the losses. The average loss is estimated at 31 km /year but varies considerably between years. The river

2000-502: The south of Timbuktu and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. Over time upstream erosion by the lower Niger resulted in stream capture of the upper Niger by the lower Niger. The northern part of the river, known as the Niger bend , is an important area because it is the major river and source of water in that part of the Sahara. This made it the focal point of trade across the western Sahara and

2050-620: The south were not allowed to vote. The election sparked riots in Northern Nigeria. According to Human Rights Watch about 140 were killed in political violence before the election alone, between November 2010 until 17 April 2011, the day after the election. According to the head of a leading Nigerian civil rights group living in Kaduna , more than 500 mostly Muslim people had been killed in three villages just in Kaduna since 16 April 2011. A speaker for

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2100-572: The southern reaches of the river tend to be Christian. Classical writings on the interior of the Sahara begin with Ptolemy , who mentions two rivers in the desert: the "Gir" (Γειρ) and farther south, the "Nigir" (Νιγειρ). The first has been since identified as the Wadi Ghir on the north-western edge of the Tuat , along the borders of modern Morocco and Algeria . This would likely have been as far as Ptolemy would have had consistent records. The Ni-Ger

2150-404: The winner on 19 April. However, international observers declared the election to be "orderly, free and fair" in the entire southern half of the country. According to a gentlemen's agreement within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) power is to rotate between the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south every two terms; this meant the flag bearer of the party for the 2011 election

2200-664: The zoning system, a Northern Muslim candidate, Ibrahim Babangida , a former general and military ruler, and Atiku Abubakar , a former vice president, ran for the presidency. After initial doubts, the interim president Goodluck Jonathan declared his intention to run for the presidency on 18 September 2010. Muhammadu Buhari was seen as the principal opposition to Jonathan besides Nuhu Ribadu . In 2011, sixty-three political parties were registered in Nigeria Online newspaper Naija Gist reported that twenty-one parties were fielding candidates, but listed only 19. Only one woman, Ebiti Ndok,

2250-557: Was already the name of a river in West Africa, as mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Solinus, among others. Whether this river was the same as the actual Niger, or rather the river also known as Ger (currently known as Oued Guir, in Morocco), is a matter of discussion. This Nigris was said to divide "Africa proper" from the land of the (Western) Ethiopians to the south, and its name (as well as that of

2300-564: Was brought as well, on which Ponty produced newspaper articles he mailed out whenever possible. The water in the Niger River basin is partially regulated through dams. In Mali the Sélingué Dam on the Sankarani River is mainly used for hydropower but also permits irrigation. Two diversion dams, one at Sotuba just downstream of Bamako , and one at Markala , just downstream of Ségou , are used to irrigate about 54,000 hectares. In Nigeria

2350-472: Was likely speculation, although the name stuck as that of a river south of the Mediterranean's "known world". Suetonius reports Romans traveling to the "Ger", although in reporting any river's name derived from a Berber language, in which "gher" means "watercourse", confusion could easily arise. Pliny connected these two rivers as one long watercourse which flowed (via lakes and underground sections) into

2400-562: Was running. Following a bombing in Abuja during Nigeria's 50th anniversary of Independence celebrations and the arrest and interrogation of the Director General of Babangida campaign, Raymond Dokpesi , there were calls for him to quit the race. In addition, others who linked his affiliates to the blasts. He responded in saying it would be "idiotic to link" him with attack. Even before the blasts, however, some of his former loyalists, popularly called "IBB Boys," apparently asked him to quit

2450-443: Was scheduled to be represented by a Northerner. After the death of one term President Umar Yar'Adua , a Northern Muslim, his Vice President Goodluck Jonathan , a Southern Christian, took over as acting president. The suggestion that Jonathan was considering running for the presidency in his own right was controversial as Yar'Adua had only served one of the two possible terms as president after Southerner Olusegun Obasanjo . Due to

2500-419: Was thought to be coastal wetlands. It was only with the 18th-century visits of Mungo Park , who travelled down the Niger River and visited the great Sahelian empires of his day, that Europeans correctly identified the course of the Niger and extended the name to its entire course. The modern nations of Nigeria and Niger take their names from the river, marking contesting national claims by colonial powers of

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