Build Us a Seaport, Even if There’s No Sea: Deputy Speaker Kalu vs Geography — Who Will Blink First?

By Ademola Adekusibe
October 4, 2025

Sometimes, the most shocking thing about politics in Nigeria is not corruption but the confidence of ignorance in high places. When a supposed national leader starts demanding a seaport in a region without a coastline, you’re left wondering whether to laugh, cry, or just hand him an atlas. It’s like asking the government to build a lighthouse in Sokoto or an airport for submarines in Enugu.

How do people rise to such national positions without understanding simple geography? How does a Deputy Speaker, who should educate others, become the one needing a geography lesson? One would think that before occupying a high seat, there’d at least be a basic grasp of where the sea stops and the river begins.

Seaports are not national favors. They are natural consequences of geography. You cannot pass a motion to create an ocean, and no presidential order can summon the Atlantic to the East. Nature decides where vessels can dock, not a politician seeking applause.

If the Southeast must have a port, it already does, the River Niger. But a river is not a sea, and tugboats are not international cargo ships. Seaports host vessels that cross continents; rivers carry barges and canoes. They serve different purposes, and pretending otherwise only turns policy into stand-up comedy.

This is what happens when public discourse becomes theatre. Every issue turns into emotional drama, and every politician wants to perform victimhood for clout. The louder the cry of “marginalization,” the clearer it becomes that some people are just arguing with geography itself.

Instead of begging Tinubu to build imaginary seaports, why not push for better rail links to Lagos and Port Harcourt? Why not demand inland terminals, dry ports, or industrial corridors? Those are achievable. But to demand a seaport where the sea itself refused to appear, that’s pure political pantomime.

The Deputy Speaker’s job is to enlighten his people, not entertain them with fantasies. Leadership should be about sense, not sentiment. Geography does not bow to politics, and the ocean does not appear because a lawmaker begged for it.

Until we start electing people who know the difference between a coastline and a campaign slogan, Nigeria will keep mistaking noise for vision.