History of the Old Niger Bridge

History of the Old Niger Bridge - Part 2

THE AGE OF FERRIES — LIFE BEFORE THE BRIDGE

Canoes and the Ancient Crossing

The earliest crossings at Onitsha were made by dugout canoe — the long, hand-carved vessels that Igbo and Ijaw boatmen had perfected over generations. These were not primitive crafts but sophisticated tools: some large enough to carry several passengers and considerable cargo, paddled by men who read the river's currents with the intimacy of those who had grown up on it.

In the pre-colonial and early colonial period, the crossing by canoe was the only option available to most people. Traders from the Onitsha market would descend to the waterfront laden with goods: palm oil in clay pots, dried fish, yams, kola nuts, groundnuts. On the Asaba side, people from the Ika Igbo communities of the west — cassava farmers, kola traders, government messengers — waited to cross in the opposite direction.

The crossing was cheap but slow. It depended on the skill of the boatman, the temperament of the river, and the season. In the dry season (November to March), the river was lower and calmer, the sandbanks exposed, the crossing relatively quick. In the wet season (June to October), the river became a different beast: swollen, fast, and opaque with silt, carrying entire trees and occasionally the debris of flooded upstream communities.

For people, canoes sufficed. For lorries, cattle, and heavy goods, they did not.

The Arrival of Motorised Ferries

The colonial Government Marine Department, established as early as 1901, recognised that inland waterways were the primary mode of transportation in the lower Niger system, and made efforts to formalise and expand river transport infrastructure. Jetties were constructed, and boats were registered and regulated.

According to published historical research on ferry services on the lower Niger, it was in 1937 — under the initiative of W. E. Hunt, the British Resident stationed in Enugu — that motorised ferry services were formally introduced to convey people and goods across the River Niger between Asaba and Onitsha. This date — 1937 — marks a pivotal shift in the history of the crossing: from the informal, artisanal canoe era to an organised, mechanised river transport service.

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