Collection
Along the River Niger
From where the Niger crosses into the country to where it meets the Benue and turns south.
The Niger enters Nigeria in the north-west, runs diagonally across it, collects the Benue at Lokoja and goes south to the delta. Almost every argument about how the country is put together — trade, boundaries, flooding, who is upstream of whom — can be told along that line. This is the river, in order.
- DispatchArgungu12.74°N 4.53°E
The festival that depends on a river that keeps failing
Argungu is famous for one morning a year. The rest of the year is a town watching the water table.
- Local historyLokoja7.80°N 6.73°E
Where two rivers meet and refuse to mix
At Lokoja the Niger and the Benue join, and for a stretch below the confluence you can see the join.
- DispatchMakurdi7.73°N 8.54°E
A city that is entirely about crossing a river
Makurdi exists because of a bridge, grows the country's yam, and floods on a schedule everybody knows.
- DispatchOnitsha6.14°N 6.80°E
Everything crosses at Onitsha
A river port with what is often called the largest market in West Africa, and one bridge holding it all together.
