Open Letter to Tinubu: Bourdex Calls for Urgent Revival of Eastern Ports

A powerful appeal has been addressed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, by prominent industrialist and statesman, Chief Dr. David Ogba Onuoha Bourdex, MFR, OON, urging urgent and decisive action to revive the long-neglected Eastern Ports - a move he describes as critical to Nigeria's economic survival and national unity.

In a strongly worded open letter titled "On the Urgent Need to Revive the Eastern Ports and End Structural Economic Marginalization,ÔÇØ Bourdex lamented what he called the "artificial bottleneckÔÇØ that has crippled commerce across the South-East and South-South for decades.

Drawing from firsthand experience dating back to the 1970s, the Abiriba-born business icon recounted the days when ports in Calabar, Port Harcourt, Onne, Warri, Sapele and Koko were vibrant centres of trade - before they were allowed to decay into silence.

According to him, the collapse of these ports forced the entire Eastern Region into an "economically suffocatingÔÇØ dependence on Lagos ports, compelling importers and businesses to spend billions annually hauling goods across overstretched and deteriorating highways.

He listed major trade routes - Ore, Benin, Asaba, Onitsha, Owerri, Aba, Uyo, Umuahia, Yenagoa, Port Harcourt, Ikot Ekpene and Calabar - describing them as "roads carrying burdens they were never designed to bear,ÔÇØ resulting in increased costs, insecurity, highway accidents, and worsening hardship for citizens and businesses.

Bourdex stressed that reviving Eastern Ports is not an ethnic demand, but a national economic imperative that would:

-reduce congestion in Lagos,

-create thousands of jobs in the East,

-lower importation costs for millions of traders,

-and restore confidence in a region that has long felt structurally excluded.

He urged President Tinubu to seize what he described as "a golden pen momentÔÇØ - the opportunity to correct historical imbalance by reactivating all Eastern maritime gateways and restoring full-scale operations.

"Let the ships return. Let the cranes rise again. Let commerce dance once more on our waterfronts,ÔÇØ Bourdex wrote, adding that the East seeks justice, balance and functionality, not charity.

He concluded by stating that Nigeria cannot continue operating "a one-artery economy,ÔÇØ insisting that the revival of Eastern Ports is essential for national cohesion, sustainable development, and for calming agitation rooted in decades of marginalization.

The open letter has begun generating intense public discussion as Nigerians debate the economic and political implications of restoring full maritime activities in the East.