The area that became Port Harcourt in 1912 was before that part of the farmlands of the Diobu village group of the Ikwerre, an Igbo sub-group . The colonial administration of Nigeria created the port to export coal from the collieries of Enugu located 243 kilometres (151 mi) north of Port Harcourt, to which it was linked by a railway called the Eastern Line, also built by the British.In 1956 crude oil was discovered in commercial quantities at Oloibiri, and Port Harcourt's economy turned to petroleum when the first shipment of Nigerian crude oil was exported through the city in 1958. Through the benefits of the Nigerian petroleum industry, Port Harcourt was further developed, with aspects of modernisation such as overpasses, city blocks and taller more substantial buildings. Oil firms that currently have offices in the city include Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron. There are a number of institutions of tertiary education in Port Harcourt, mostly government-owned. These institutions include, Rivers State University, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Ignatius Ajuru University and Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology. Port Harcourt's primary airport is Port Harcourt International Airport, located on the outskirts of the city; the NAF base is the location of the only other airport and is used by commercial airlines Aero Contractors and Air Nigeria) for domestic flights.
ECONOMY
Port Harcourt is a major industrial centre as it has a large number of multinational firms as well as other industrial concerns, particularly business related to the petroleum industry. It is the chief oil-refining city in Nigeria and has two main oil refineries that process around 210,000 barrels of crude oil a day, both operated by the Port Harcourt Refining Company. Rivers State is one of the wealthiest states in Nigeria in terms of gross domestic product and foreign exchange revenue from the oil industry, crude oil being its principal export earner. Microapartment architecture is quite common in certain parts of Port Harcourt. The Point Block of Rivers State Secretariat is an icon of the city. An 18-story building, it is the tallest building in the South East and South South geopolitical zones combined.
EDUCATION
Several institutions of tertiary education in Port Harcourt offer a wide range of professionally-accredited programmes and qualifications. Most of these institutions are publicly funded while others are run by private entities. The University of Port Harcourt was ranked 6th in Africa and 1st in Nigeria by Times Higher Education in 2015. The federal government owned university has its main campus at Choba district. Universities and colleges administered by the Government of Rivers State are also located in the city. They include Rivers State University, Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education and Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology. The notable private institutions are Catholic Institute of West Africa and Eastern Polytechnic. While the latter is the first and only private polytechnic established in the state.
This is what we own and how the world see's your state but are we getting close to what we should have ?, Are we incharge of our resources?, The youths need more than what it's been given.
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