NIGERIA TO GREATNESS (NITOG) Vol 3

By Mr. NIGERIA

The time has come to make our Nation great again🇳🇬

NIGERIAN PLACES

Nigeria is one of West Africa’s most beautiful and scenic country with waterfalls, mountain ranges and fascinating wildlife.

Although, some travel abroad forgetting that the Nigerian Nation is blessed with countless sights of nature miracles, wonders and amusing scenes to behold.

From the downstream South to the up North are endowed with beautiful places and rich cultural heritage.

However, in today's publication, we shall be focusing our gaze on one of the wonders of the world located in Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria.

THE CONFLUENCE AT LOKOJA

A confluence is the meeting of two or more bodies of water. Known also as a conflux, it refers either to the point where a tributary joins a larger river, called the main stem, or where two streams meet to become the source of a river of a new name, such as the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania creating the Ohio River.

The river Niger remained a wonder to the first Europeans who set foot on Nigeria’s soil until John and Richard Landers passed through the confluence on October 25th 1830 thereby completing the journey that Mungo Park had started. Rivers Niger and Benue are the two largest rivers in West Africa.

The two rivers meet at Lokoja in Kogi state, forming a Y-shaped structure in what appears to be a magnificent union and draining southwards into the ocean. While River Niger is brownish in colour, River Benue is light green in colour. Fishing is carried on extensively on the rivers. There are ferry and boat services plus cruising facilities within view of the confluence.

The sole aim is to make it a pleasurable delight to visitors, both foreign and local, thus boosting the tourism industry, the economy and the level of social interaction in the state. Lokoja is mostly known and celebrated for is its confluence. Lokoja, it is, where the two great rivers: Niger and Benue meet. Whichever means the great geographical wonder is accessed – it is a beauty to behold.

Two giant arms of water spread-eagled on an expanse of land dotted with green vegetation. The array of settlements around the confluence which they sprout from have probably made aerial approach to Nature’s wonder more enrapturing. For those who do this either from aircraft or choppers, it is sheer bliss.

Those who could not afford this should, however, not allow their enthusiasm to be dampened. There are other elevated landscapes around where the confluence could be viewed aerially. These also dot the site of the confluence.

The significance of the two rivers to the socio-cultural and economical wellbeing of the country cannot be overemphasised. The Niger snaking its way through the upper part of the country down to Lokoja and even threading to other parts of the land especially the South West where it is revered and even deified. Yoruba call the Niger River Oya.

#GodblessNigeria

#theLandofGreatness

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