Editor’s note: “Water is a basic necessity of life, as its provision should form part of the basic program of any right-thinking government at different levels of administration. We all need it for many activities and purposes, particularly at the domestic level, towards encouraging hygiene and healthy living,” the Naij.com author Hussain Obaro writes and draws our attention to the water supply troubles in Kogi state.
Regular provision of pipe-borne water remains a chief challenge that is mostly evident in urban and semi-urban centers throughout Nigeria. Due to present economic hardship, many residents and house-owners are unable to pay the huge amounts that borehole outfits and water tanker operators usually charge. The borehole business and water tanker dispensary has become a huge venture across the country because of the irresponsibility and inability of government to prioritize provision of regular water supply to the populace.
Kogi state, geographically located in the heart of Nigeria, or what is historically referred to as the ‘middle belt,’ is one of the states created in August 1991 by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd.) alongside Delta, Yobe, Jigawa, Taraba, Osun, Kebbi and Abia states. Like many other cities in Nigeria, Lokoja, the state capital, occupies a nerve position in Nigeria’s history. It is an ancient town that is well-blessed with water resource, being the host of the confluence, the meeting point of two great rivers Benue and Niger. Despite this natural advantage, the lack of potable drinking water supply accurately rhymes with an anonymous sailor’s distress statement: “Water, water everywhere, but not a single drop to drink”. This perfectly describes the portable water supply crisis in Kogi state and Nigeria in general.
The obsolete and low-capacity water infrastructure and neglect on the part of the government to fully harness the water resource have contributed to worsening the crisis in the Lokoja metropolis and its environs. Successive governments, from the first military administrator, Colonel Danladi Zakari, to the incumbent Alhaji Idris Wada, have failed to put any meaningful and deliberate measure in place at addressing the water needs of the people. For the purpose of emphasis, it was only during the administration of the immediate past governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, that a decisive attempt aimed at addressing the acute water shortage in the state capital and environs was made, which led to a revisit of the report of the technical committee on the “Greater Lokoja Water Project,” originally initiated in 1995 by the military administration of Colonel Paul Omeruoh.
The project mentioned above was contracted to the Chinese GeoConstruction Company (CGCC) at a cost of about N10 billion and expected to supply about 10 million gallons per day. As laudable as this project may seem, it wasn’t enough to quell and adequately put an end to the water challenge of the inhabitants of Lokoja and environs, probably because of the long neglect of this basic amenity.
The challenge of providing potable water to Lokoja, and Kogi state in general, is growing by the day. Residents from various parts of the state, notably the urban areas, always move about with kegs and other containers in search of water for their daily use, all the more during the dry season. As early as five o’clock in the morning, women and children carrying bowls of various shapes and sizes start trekking long distances in search of this very scarce commodity. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the state’s population keeps growing: due to the spate of insecurity occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency, many people from the northeast and other volatile northern states flee to find peaceful abode in the confluence state.
The central senatorial district of the state is blessed with big dams, like the Ekuku and Osara, that could effectively supply more than tens of millions gallons per day to the inhabitants of that part of the state and even the entire state. Still, the animosity and acrimony on the part of the ‘born-to-rule’ ethnic group of the state has been a major impediment against these water projects. They believe that resources not located in their own part of the state are not worth harnessing, even if doing so could benefit the entire state.
Hussain Obaro
The IREHU waterworks which used to supply potable drinking water to the people of Okene has been reduced to a mere campaign tool for winning the votes for politicians. No efforts are being made to make good on their campaign promise to rehabilitate and resuscitate the ancient waterworks outfit as soon as the elections are over.
If urgent measures are not taken by both the federal and state governments to deliberately addressing the age-long water crisis in Lokoja and Kogi state in general, the probability of an outbreak of disease in the coming days cannot be overruled. This would drastically affect the entire nation, both socially and economically, due to the strategic location of the state as the ‘gateway’ via which all geopolitical zones in Nigeria are made accessible.
– Hussain Obaro is a writer, motivational speaker and public affairs commentator
