The Ibom deep seaport if Actualize would be her biggest Infrastructural development and major economic leap for Akwa Ibomites.
The proposed project is to be built on the the longest coastline in West Africa. But this may not come to fruition in near future due some hurdles already laid by National Politics and south west regional Political play in impending such in other south regions.
There has been a long enthusiasm for the project which seeks to create hundreds of jobs as part of the Ibom industrial City Project after it reportedly got the approval of the federal government and preferred bidders approved for the construction of the port project.
Akwa Ibom maritime project has come a long way, since from the administration of Obong Victor Attah, who was the designer of project, the long bureaucratic process continud under Chief God'swill Obit Akpabio and now currently Gov.Udom Emmanuel regime.
But before I'll let you know what may hinder it's actualization in near future let's take a glimpse of the Deep Sea Port according to the state government.
Ibom Deep Seaport Insight:
Ibom deep seaport is designed for very large vessels, vessels that can load over 13 thousand containers in one voyage. It will be a transshipment port as smaller vessels will re-distribute cargo from the mega vessels to sea ports, river ports closer to the consignees within Nigeria and outside Nigeria .
IDSP is a Federal Government project driven by the Nigerian Port Authority & Federal Ministry of Transport Akwa-Ibom state. And we have the Global Maritime & Port Services PTE Limited as the transaction driver
Location
Ibom Deep Sea PortStrategically located to serve West and Central African Region, JDZ Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroun, Angola, Gabon, Congo, Congo DRC, Chad etc.
5,129 hectares for port development
Ibom Industrial City
Ibom Industrial CitySMART Ibom Industrial City (IIC) 14,400hectares . Licenced Free Trade Zone; Export Processing zone (in process)
Design of IIC on Cluster model:
Maritime clusters
High Information and Technology clusters
Major Barrier to the Actualization of the Ibom deep seaport
- South West Regional Politics:
this may sound strange to you or this maybe the first time of hearing this. The south west has had this perspective of being the economic regional capital of Nigeria, just as the north with her perception of "power belongs to us" philosophy.
As the north has ensured that she remains at echelon in political and military structure, the south west leaders has over the years ensures she wield the power of economic policy.
The south west has played it's cards well in national politics that has serve the region interest since the days of Awolowo. The political philosophy of regionalism in the 60s still unofficially guides national policy today.
The politics of the west will hinder the smooth operations of realization of the Deep seaport that will facilitate economic growth and development in Akwa Ibom. It is incumbent upon the current political elites in Akwa Ibom state to develop strategies to overcome what would or probably will stop us from achieving our long dream.
- The Centralization of Maritime Trade to Lagos
It's no news that all major maritime trade should be directed to Lagos. This Centralization of Maritime activities has rendered every ports in other coastline states non functional and near abandonment and by extension under development of Akwa Ibom port even though she has the longest shore line in the country.
The idea of building other ports in other states is a geo-regional threat to Lagos precious jewel. The construction of deep port would threatened Lagos economic power in west African region.
Akwa Ibom state is tap to become an economic power in central and west Africa, disposing already congested Lagos. Lagos hosts the unarguable number 1 trade ethnic group (Igbo), which maintain significant economic population of Lagos. The Ibom port will encourage mass emigration out of Lagos to Akwa Ibom, which share land boundaries with the state
Lagos deep pockets and strong influences in national economic policy will ensure that there will be difficulty in bureaucratic process for the project and lots of BLACKMAILING within the state to pin the project to a hold.