Despite being blessed with many water resources: rivers, streams, among others, nationwide, many Nigerian homes still do not have access to potable water. In this report, IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI examines how the failure of many state governments to adequately improve available water channels despite huge local and international investment continues to fuel water poverty and gravely affect the access of many Nigerians to clean and potable water.
One major challenge for Tomi Olaseinde, a primary 5 pupil at IMG Grammar School, Molete, every day is finding enough water for her family of five to use for domestic activities like washing, cooking and bathing. As the first of three children, the responsibility falls on her and her seven-year-old brother, Isaiah, to fend for potable clean and usable water that the family needs.
They sometimes run into luck whenever owners and residents of houses in the neighbourhood open their doors for people to fetch water from their boreholes. When they are not in luck, Tomi, Isaiah and other people in similar situations wander from house to house in the neighbourhood in search of clean water. It was an everyday struggle.
“They only open to us at will, but some of them are very kind. The usual complaint is that they do not have enough water to serve those in their buildings because of the poor power supply in the area,” she told Sunday Tribune. “If we don’t get water in the evening, we must find water before we leave for school the next morning.”
The plight of those living in the Felele axis where Tomi and hundreds of others live is worsened by the lack of water supply by the government. The situation made many houses in the area and beyond depend on self-sought boreholes and wells for those who can afford them and others at the mercy of those with self-supply water facilities or worse.
While those in other parts of Felele such as Oshodi and Scout Camp axis depend on manual hand-press water boreholes or wells, many others fend for themselves as they depend on community boreholes or facilities provided by politicians
There is a touch of irony to the water scarcity situation for residents in Felele area. Around the community is a large water body. Ogunpa River runs behind the community towards the Soka area of the state, but they cannot depend on it for domestic use because it is largely polluted and contaminated at different locations that the river runs through.
Earlier in March when Sunday Tribune reported how residents empty small-to-medium-sized waste bins into the Ogunpa River Drainage Basin that runs through the Popo Yemoja axis. Many others who live in nearby houses without proper toilet facilities, Sunday Tribune learnt, use the river as a central site for open defecation. These, and many other human, and mechanical activities that run on the bank or edge of the river, make the water unsafe for domestic use of people living close to it.
Several independent studies, over the years, have shown that the pollution load in Ogunpa River was above recommended levels, with one published in the LAUTECH Journal of Civil and Environmental Studies in 2021 alluding that “effort should be made to checkmate indiscriminate dumping of refuse and sewage into the water body as these could serve as pollutants to other adjourning rivers and main bodies.”
The study also added that “the water is not fit for domestic, agricultural and probably industrial uses because of its health implication on consumption.”
Polluted Rivers Everywhere…
Ogunpa River is just one of the many surface water resources/bodies that should naturally provide a temporary solution for people facing water challenges across the country, but the level of contamination and pollution in said water bodies has left so much to be desired, forcing many state governments to abandon plans to invigorate some of their dams and water supply infrastructures, thereby putting my residents in jeopardy as they continue to experience water scarcity.
A report by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) showed that only 30 percent of the Nigerian population has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
Checks by Sunday Tribune showed that there are about five primary sources of water viz; groundwater, surface water (rivers, lakes, streams etc.) rainwater, glaciers and ice caps as well as desalinated (sea)water. Most commonly used in Nigeria are the first three.
Since the federal government is saddled with the responsibility of managing water resources, the state governments are charged with the primary responsibility of urban water supply. To achieve this, states depend on surface water sources wherein they treat such water and circulate to various homes for domestic use. As an alternative, many rural and some urban communities depend on rainwater.
However, the failure of state governments to provide adequate water supply for many urban communities has led to an increase in the sitting of boreholes in many private residences which usually involves the digging of the ground to access water in aquifers, a development many experts and studies believe portend greater danger when overconcentrated in a particular area as it makes the area susceptible to earthquakes and tremors, among other dangers.
A fact sheet published by Water Aid noted that more than 60 million Nigerians do not have access to basic clean water supply. It also projected that water scarcity will displace between 24 million and 700 million in Nigeria by the year 20230, going by the current climate scenario. While citing the United Nations estimates, Water Aid added that one in four Nigerian children will be living in areas of extremely high water stress.
Painting a sordid picture of Nigeria’s quality water poverty rate, an environmental scientist and researcher at Western Illinois University, United States of America, Samuel Babatunde, told Sunday Tribune that despite its apparent water wealth, Nigeria faces significant challenges in providing clean, safe, and accessible water to its growing population.
“Nigeria is a country with abundant water resources, both surface and groundwater. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, Nigeria has an estimated 267 billion cubic meters of total renewable water resources per year. This figure includes 214 billion cubic meters of surface water and 87 billion cubic meters of groundwater. The Niger River, the third-longest river in Africa, along with its tributaries, is the primary source of surface water in Nigeria,” he said.
“While Nigeria’s water resources are substantial, they are not evenly distributed across the country, and the current infrastructure is insufficient to meet the domestic needs of all Nigerians. According to UNICEF, only 71% of the population has access to basic water services, leaving nearly 60 million people without access to clean water. The situation is particularly dire in rural areas, where only 47% of the population has access to basic water services. This disparity in water access is a result of inadequate investment in water infrastructure, poor maintenance of existing facilities, and rapid population growth,” Babatunde added.
As Babatunde said, the current infrastructure cannot adequately undertake a consistent supply of clean water for the people.
Even though former President Muhammadu Buhari declared a state of emergency in Nigeria’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector and launched the National Action Plan (NAP), a 13-year strategy for the revitalisation of the WASH sector in 2018, many states still battle with acute water scarcity.
Aside from that, the FG and many state governments have in the past attracted local and international funding options and partnerships with the private sector as part of efforts to bolster their investments in water infrastructure and ultimately improve the supply of clean water to many urban areas.
For instance, last September, the Federal Government through the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Utsev, announced a partnership with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to create opportunities for the private sector to lead a turnaround in the water resources and sanitation sector. He also pledged to collaborate with the group to accelerate the implementation of the government’s water resources and sanitation mandate.
About a month later, Prof Utsev announced plans of the government to partially commercialise some of its 12 river basins to enable them to deliver their mandates effectively and to generate increased revenues for the government.
“The basins have huge infrastructure like water supply schemes, dams and irrigation that require good funding to be able to keep them running and to provide dividends for Nigerians,” the Minister was quoted to have said.
Huge Investment, Poor Results
In terms of investment, billions of money has been committed to the water sector in Nigeria. Aside from budgetary allocations and local funding opportunities, the French Development Agency (otherwise known as Agence française de développement, AFD) recently announced that it has invested over USD 233 million in Nigeria’s water sector.
The same goes for the African Development Bank (AFD) whose investment in Nigeria’s water sector crossed the USD 1 billion mark in 2013, USAID, among other international funders.
Despite the huge investments over the years and promises to do more, there are reports of scarcity or inadequate supply in many cities and communities every week.
For many years now, areas notable for water scarcity in Nigeria include Oyo, Ogun, Sokoto, Kano, and Enugu, among many others and this is usually compounded by the topography of such states, particularly in the North where the challenge remains rife. A 2023 report by the Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP) indicated that Sokoto had the lowest level of basic water access in Nigeria with 33 percent.
The removal of 67km of water pipes across Abeokuta to pave the way for the construction, expansion and reconstruction of certain roads and overhead bridges during the administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun as well as the replacement of old and damaged asbestos water pipes by the Peter Mbah administration pushed more people into water poverty and stress.
A resident of Lafenwa who frequents the Ago Ika area of Abeokuta in Ogun State, Sefiu Akande, told Sunday Tribune over the phone that residents of the area, who are left with no other option depend on Odo Ogun (Ogun River) for their water needs, adding that the plight is usually worse during the dry season.
“Despite the high level of contamination and pollution at Odo Ogun, people along the river bank still use it for domestic purposes. I know of households and families that even use the water to cook. It is quite surprising. Even though I understand their plight, I just wonder why the government has abandoned people like that.
“There are different kinds of contamination that happen on that river. People defecate in that same river, some dispose of refuse and even dead bodies, but you find out people still use that kind of water inside their homes,” Akande said.
Mrs Kolawole, a mother of four, who lives in the Olorunosgo axis of Felele, Ibadan, also told Sunday Tribune that her children also wander off the streets in search of well and even pipe-borne water to use at home.
She added that the only reprieve the kids get now is that her husband has now engaged the services of water trucks from whom they buy litres of water to fill their drums weekly.
“The suffering to get water is just too much for those of us living in this area. You can imagine that my children used to trek long distances before they could get water. Whatever they get is what we share and manage before they fetch again.
“Getting big drums to store water now is our saving grace, but it is expensive,” she said.
When Sunday Tribune reached out to Seun Adewuyi, a Nigerian who is now resident in the United Kingdom, seeking information how whether the protection of water bodies in Nigeria is similar to what is obtainable overseas, he said the level of protection and awareness about pollution of surface water abroad is higher compared to what is obtainable in Nigeria.
“Everyone here polices of the water bodies. Once they see something, they report it. A lot of them are safeguarded by indiscriminate access unless it is open for recreational purposes, especially during summer, but it is not without appropriate planning.
“You can’t just say you want to indiscriminately dump refuse or sewage in the water bodies like people do in Nigeria where they even place calabashes and bowls of sacrifice on the bank or inside the rivers,” she said.
Commenting on the lack of access to potable water in the country, a WASH consultant and water and environmental engineer, Temple Oraeki, told Sunday Tribune that the major problem with water access is that most of the public water systems (water boards) are in comatose and working below capacity.
“The way the Nigerian system is structured in terms of water supply, the onus of responsibility lies with the states; they are responsible for making potable water available for residents in their states, while the Federal Ministry of Water Resources deals with oversight and policies. The state governments thereafter set up water boards with the mandate to provide access to potable water and tackle water poverty across the country.
“But what you find out is that most waterworks are not functional and where they are functional, they are working well below capacity and that is why most people depend on self-supply such that as you’re building your house, you also take care of your water supply. That’s why many buildings have water tanks, wells or whatever they can afford.
Protecting Rivers, Water Sources
“The challenge with self-supply is that you are responsible for the quality of water that you drink, nobody comes to check the quality of water that you have in your house even if you’re supplying it at a commercial scale to neighbours on the streets and your estate or area,” Oraeki explained.
The water engineer also expressed assurances that the treatment and conversion of Nigeria’s water resources from surface water was enough to provide potable and clean water for all citizens if the right investment and infrastructure were undertaken by the state governments.
He said: “If we can channel water from the water bodies into domestic use, they are well enough for the use of all Nigerians despite our huge population,” he said. “It is more than enough if the state governments are investing in their respective water boards.
“The boards naturally get water from rivers that run across the state and where that is not in existence, they utilise groundwater and some utilise both surface and groundwater with which they supply the residents. We are well endowed with water resources but the governments have not prioritised investment in water supply.”
He, however, charged residents to refrain from contaminating rivers, lakes and other surface water sources so that the pollution load can be minimal and will be easy for the state governments to treat and supply to homes.
“The responsibility doesn’t always lie with the government; it lies with the people too. Because most people have turned towards self-supply from groundwater, most rivers, lakes and others that provide surface water have now been turned to dumpsites. They use drainages as dumpsites and that in turn pushes them into rivers.
“Most rivers that run across our states are very well contaminated. The pollution load you will find there is very high compared to what you will find in the groundwater and it will cost more to treat such water before reticulating or sending it to people’s homes for domestic use. The more the pollution load, the more the water boards will be used to treat it.
“In developed climes, for every river that serves as a source to those water boards, the government sets up protection zones or markers (measured in metres) where certain human, agricultural and industrial activities that can pollute the rivers are prohibited close to the banks. These protection zones protect the rivers from contamination. For the fact that the water boards are not optimally functioning, protecting the rivers is not a priority. When they later check the cost of rectifying the issue, they will rather abandon it than fix it.
“People contribute to the high pollution load, but the government has a mechanism to prevent such. The cost of treating one water body is different from the other and putting an estimate is not something one can ascertain because the pollution load of each water body varies. One may be using one million litres of chlorine daily to disinfect its water while another may not need up to that, but it is cost-intensive and that is why potable water is not free anywhere,” he added.
When asked if there is truth to concerns that the concentration of drilling of boreholes would leave the earth in the area susceptible to natural disasters, Oraeki said there’s science behind such concerns.
“Even without science, when you’re drilling boreholes or mining in and it is too concentrated in a particular location or area, you’re distorting the underground earth layers of the area and that’s a precursor to impending natural disasters, but we don’t have such occurrences that we can easily attribute to indiscriminate borehole drilling.
“It is something that we should be worried about looking at the pace with which we are going. The more the population grows, the more houses will be cited and more people will need water sourced from boreholes. We should be worried about it at some point.”
On the consequences of water poverty, Babatunde of Western Illinois University disclosed that the lack of potable water for many Nigerians is a critical issue that has far-reaching consequences for public health, economic development, and social well-being.
“Waterborne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid fever, are prevalent in areas with poor water quality, leading to high rates of morbidity and mortality, particularly among children under five.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that over 70,000 children die annually in Nigeria due to diarrheal diseases caused by poor water quality and sanitation. Moreover, the time and energy spent collecting water, often by women and girls, reduces their opportunities for education and economic participation, perpetuating a cycle of poverty,” he added.
He listed the factors contributing to the deficit in potable water supply in Nigeria to include inadequate investment, rapid population growth, pollution of water sources, climate change, poor governance and institutional capacity.
“Nigeria’s water sector has suffered from chronic underfunding, resulting in ageing and poorly maintained water treatment plants, distribution networks, and storage facilities,” he said. “Nigeria’s population has been growing at a rapid pace, outstripping the capacity of existing water infrastructure to meet the increasing demand.”
To address the identified issues and ensure sustainable access to potable water for all Nigerians, Babatunde called for a multi-faceted approach where the government would prioritise funding for the construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of water treatment plants, distribution networks, and storage facilities.
He added that addressing Nigeria’s water challenges requires a concerted effort from the government, private sector, civil society, and international partners, adding that by prioritising investment, strengthening institutions, and adopting innovative approaches, Nigeria can make significant strides towards ensuring access to clean, safe, and sustainable water for all its citizens.
He said: “Improving institutional capacity, transparency, and accountability in water sector institutions is crucial for effective water resource management and service delivery. Adopting an integrated water resource management (IWRM) approach that considers the interconnectedness of water resources, ecosystems, and human activities can help ensure the sustainable and equitable use of water resources.
“Strengthening water quality monitoring systems and enforcing regulations on industrial effluents, agricultural practices, and waste management can help protect water sources from contamination.
“Engaging local communities in water resource management, conservation, and hygiene education can promote a sense of ownership and ensure the sustainability of water projects.
“Explore alternative water sources: Investing in rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge, and water recycling technologies can help augment water supplies and reduce pressure on conventional sources.”
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