ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS LIMITING PERFORMANCE IN THE LOWER RIVER NIGER DREDGING PROJECT, NIGERIA
Obeta M. C., Ubuoh E. A. and Akande S.O
Department of Geography
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
E-mail: attahubuoh@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Inland water transport has, prior to the 1980s, received little attention from the Nigerian government. Very little investment was made to develop inland water transport facilities. Conversely, land and air transport received priority attention. However, due to rapid growth of urbanization, population, commercial units, institutions and vehicular traffic leading to congestions and stress on the nations roads, inland water transport is now receiving more attention from both the government and the private sector. This growing awareness motivated the federal government to embark on the Lower Niger River dredging to boost the movement of goods and services from the coast to the interior. Meanwhile, this popular initiative has contrary to earlier proposals, targets and expectations, progressed very slowly. This paper investigates the physical and socio-economic factors militating against the dredging project using primary and secondary data collected from diverse sources, including the inland waterways department of the Federal Ministry of Transport. Analysis of the factors constraining the performance of the dredging activities is presented. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) reduced the 28 respondents identified constraining variables to four underlying components, which explained 73.74% of the variance leaving 26.26% to other variables not used in the analysis. The underlying components are; non-use of professional studies, inadequate resource base, physical or environmental constraints and technical difficulties. Based on the finding of the study, strategies which can facilitate the development of the dredging project and enhance planning procedure in the water transport sector were advanced.
KEY WORDS: Constraints, Impact, Lower Niger River, Inland water transport, Nigeria, River dredging.