ADADA IBAGWA-AKA RIVER – A TOURIST HEAVEN BECKONING FOR ATTENTION OF INVESTORS

By Nkem Ossai

A Reporter’s Random Musings!

‘As I sat at the edge, motionless, before the great river, with my ageing gaze at the youngsters tossing the waters over their tender bodies and diving in and out of the water of my youth, my memory raced back to 1969 when I was like them. Holding back tears of joy, I stared towards the famous “Ugwu Thomas” (Thomas Hills), as the rumbling sound keep cascading downwards and speeding uncontrollably towards “EGONICHA” IBAGWA-AKA; then the sacred lines from the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, mysteriously flooded my subconscious.’

“And I behold once more

My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,

The same blue wonder that my infant eye

Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came, –

Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed

The flagrant flag roots in my father’s fields,

And where thereafter in the world he went.

Look, here he is unaltered, save that now

He had broke his banks and flooded all the lakes

With his redundant waves.

Here is the rock where yet a simple child,

I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,

Much triumphing, – and these the fields

Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly,

A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.”

— By Ralph Waldo Emerson — 1803 – 1882.

Sometime in 2019, I visited the great Adada Ibagwa-Aka river. This unique or rather miraculous river disappeared around 1969 at the heat of the Nigerian war of attrition against Biafra. The river was to reappear in 2018 after over 50 years of its extinction.

On 8th March, 2021, I went back again to monitor its progressive increase. To my inexplicable surprise, I discovered that it has risen to a neckline of a six foot old man and, alas, breaking its bounds. This means that careless swimmers can be drowned.

My rough estimation indicates that it is speedily racing towards “Agu Onicha” Ibagwa-Aka, a distance of about three kilometres Westwards. Apart from providing aquatic resources, it can be dammed to serve as a fresh water basin for Ibagwa-Aka, Nsukka, Nkalagu, Itchi, Ibagwa Ani and Alor-uno.

 Ibagwa-Aka is an ancient but fast growing urban town. It is a community that has been denied all the trappings of dividends of democracy from cradle to civilization by several governments – local, state and federal. However, the town that was once described as a metropolitan in rural setting, by this author, is exceedingly blessed with good spirited men and women who have now taken it upon themselves to give the township area of the town a beautiful look with the installation of solar-powered street lights and several road construction with beautiful drainages – thanks to Rauf Gbadamosi (Kusel).

During the 1950s and 1960s, Adada Ibagwa-Aka was the only source of water for the entire Igbo-Eze and Nsukka Regions. Infact, the great University of Nigeria Nsukka was built with water from Adada Ibagwa-Aka river. Some people are of the opinion that the disappearance of the river during the late sixties was as a result of the UNN construction activities that endlessly drew water from the river.

During the Biafra-Nigeria civil war, the river was the only source of drinking water for Igbo-Eze South, North and Nsukka Regions.

Today, I saw a TOURISTS’ delight and a travellers heaven, passionately beckoning for attention from both governments and businessmen alike. There is ample evidence that by 2025, rich men and women will have the opportunity of travelling to Mars Planet, the nearest planet to the earth, for a holiday. Adada Ibagwa-Aka is honestly our own Mars Planet. This effortless  gift from God could be harnessed for recreational activities and for dry season farming. I will never lose my long held idealism or optimism that Adada Ibagwa-Aka will one day find succour in a benevolent spirit, government or independent investor.

It is evidentially indisputable that from Enugu, the state capital to Obollo-Afor, there is not a single recreational facility or a Beach where people can go to lower their blood pressure which is being pumped up by the endless woes that this country has become, except hotels whose costs are beyond the reach of ordinary people.

The Bakolori river that holds the famous Bakolori Dam is smaller than Adada river. In 1974, the government of Olusegun Obasnjo invited Impresit Consortium (an Italian construction giant),  to do a feasibility study on the Rima and Sokoto river in Maradun LGA in the present day Zamfara State. After the study, the company came up with a verdict that the small Rima River emptying into Sokoto river, can hold enough water capable of irrigating about 75 kilometre arable land using sprinkler and surface irrigation systems.

The contract was then awarded to Impresit Consortium who now incorporated a new company for the project under a new name of Impresit Bakolori Nigeria Limited. The initial cost of the contract was $75 million dollars in 1974. Today, that gigantic project is a source of water for farmers all year round.

The dam and irrigation projects which was completed in 1985 has been a source of various food and crops like rice, tomatoes, onions, carrots, pumpkin vegetable leaves, sweet and Irish potatoes etc., all year round.

A project of this magnitude requires courageous leadership who are capable of thinking out of the box. The Bakolori Dam Project can best be described as a sovereign project for the people of Sokoto and Zamfara States. This is because it was planned to last several generations. 

Think about this. Alhaji Shehu Shagari (a Minister in President Obasanjo’s government then), who conceived this giant project was a grade two classroom teacher before eventually becoming the president of Nigeria in 1979. He left office when the project was still less than 75 percent complete. However, because of the importance attached to the project, subsequent administrations worked hard to complete the project.

The South Eastern leaders should by now start to find ways and means of tackling food scarcity in the region. Building water dams along natural waterways are the easiest ways of having steady food and vegetable supply in and out of seasons. It is not right that we should wait for another cyclic disappearance and appearance of the river before thinking seriously about the river. A stitch in time saves nine.

“For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it.”

—From “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman, 2021 inaugural poet.

*This article on Adada river was published in 2021 but is now republished with minor edits as a result of popular demands and changes in the affairs of men.*