The need to address the perennial water shortage in the Federal Capital Territory prompted the Obasanjo led government to award a multi-billion naira Gurara Water Transfer project towards the end of the year 2000. The contract for the project was signed between the government represented by officials of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and the Contractors, Selini Construction Company was eventually signed on January 20, 2001 at a total cost of N15.123 billion. They were given three years to complete the project. The dam was designed to supply raw water to the Lower Usman Dam in the Federal Capital Territory for a 50 year period. But there was nothing in the initial design to take care of the local communities.
Mr. Ibrahim Babaji of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources said that the project was initially designed to provide water to the FCT only, adding that additional components of a hydro-power plant to supply 30 megawatts of electricity to Kaduna and a pilot irrigation were later added. Available information from the ministry suggested that the dam was completed and commissioned in 2007, while the power plant has also been completed and tested.
According to an information booklet made available by the ministry, the dam has been supplying raw water to the FCT through the conveyance pipeline to the lower Usman dam to serve the original purpose. It also said that “in order to optimise the full utilisation of the 30 megawatts hydro-power plant, it was foreseen that a 132 kw high voltage transmission line of 140 kilomtres to Kaduna would be erected, additional access roads to Kateri and Kenyi would be constructed, including the completion of the irrigation project”. The additional work led to the review of the project cost to N54.343 billion with a completion period of July 2011. The ministry said further that the project suffered delay when funds were not released for its completion until September 2012 when funding resumed and the new completion date fixed at December 2014.
The Nation learnt that the dam has a total embankment of about 8 million cubic metres is 52.5 metres deep and 3.1 km long, with a reservoir which has a surface of 61 square kilomtres and a maximum capacity of 880 million cubic meters of water. It also has a 1.16 km tunnel with 42 meter high intake tower on the right bank of the dam which has been equipped with hydraulic valves which will transfer the water to the conveyance pipeline to Abuja.
The irrigation component of the dam is designed to serve about 2000 hectare of farm land for both local and commercial farmers. Already, a test irrigation scheme has been put in place, but it was not immediately clear the quantity of food that will be produced by the farmers who are likely to benefit from the scheme. It was also discovered that the dam was designed to provide a multi-system pilot scheme (drip, gravity, sprinkler, mobile machine, pivot) with the water provided by the dam. However, it was not immediately clear how beneficial the project will be to the local farmers who may not have the capacity to tap into the pipes laid. The availability of a constant flow of 22 million cubic metres of water, regulated by power plant is the core of the implementation of the irrigation scheme. The water flow according to action plan will be provided by booster stations, regulated by an automatic control in a flow range, while a network of primary, secondary and tertiary pipes regulated by hand operated valves will distribute the regulated water to the fields and determining a 12 months development of the crops both during the raining and dry season.
Available information indicates that apart from the irrigation, power and water component of the project, it is expected to serve as a source of fish farming and a possible development of tourism. Even though the tourism potentials of the dam have not been built into the project, a visit to the area shows a rich mountain formation that could be used for tourism and generate revenue and also provide a possible future agro-industrial development for Kaduna State.
A visit to the project site revealed a heavy presence of security operatives in the area possibly to scare away the locals who may come to protest their neglect. The Nation learnt that in April 2009, two years after the supposed completion and commissioning of the project by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the host communities embarked on a peaceful protest over lack of amenities such as potable drinking water in the communities. They accused the federal government of failing to implement the agreement entered into with the communities before the commencement of the project in 2001. Part of the agreement, according to a spokesman of the demonstrators, Samuel Bahago include the construction of roads linking the communities with other parts of Kaduna state and provision of electricity and potable drinking water to the people.
Bahago who then the President of Kuturmi Development Association said that the communities do not have potable drinking water, despite being the source of the water that is being supplied to the Federal capital Territory saying it is also disheartening that the road from Katari, on the Kaduna-Abuja expressway linking the communities with the outside world and also the one from Anturu village to the dam are in deplorable condition, contrary to the agreements reached in 2001 with both the federal government and Salini, the contractors of the dam, that the road will be constructed and made motorable. Bahago noted that the government should implement the agreement of 2001 should be implemented while social amenities like clinics, primary schools, accessible road network and market which have all been denied them should be provided as contained in the agreement of 2001. He also lamented that sick people and pregnant women in the communities are always at serious risk due to the absence of a health centre, pointing out that the closest clinic to them was located about 60 kilometers from them, with only one secondary school.
However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel as the access roads leading to the communities are currently being attended to by the company handling the project. When The Nation visited the project site on Saturday, December 7, 2013, one of the roads, linking the dam to Kateri was being tarred while the other remained dusty. Engr. Ibrahim Babaji, a representative of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources supervising the project said the two roads when completed are expected to serve the communities who hitherto had no access roads. Chairman of Kagarko local government area, Danjuma Akuso appeal to the government to extend the water component of the dam to the host communities, pointing out that it was out of place to take water from the area to service
the Federal Capital Territory, while the host communities of the project are living without portable drinking water. Kingsley Osadalor who led the Good Governance Tour team to the Gurara dam project site agrees with Akuso that the host community need to benefit from the water. Osadalor said “I can see the case of resource control coming up here. I agree that those from whose land the water is generated should benefit from the project. So, I want to appeal to the contractors and the consultants to look at the possibility of doing that”.
Former President Obasanjo who conceived the project was quoted as saying while commissioning it in April of 2007 that his vision for the water resources sector of the Nigerian economy was to provide sustainable access to safe and sufficient water to meet the socio-cultural and economic development needs of Nigeria. It was this zeal that was said to have informed the construction and rehabilitation of dams, irrigation schemes and domestic water supply projects across the country.
Obasanjo was quoted to have said further that the Gurara water project is in line with the unwavering commitment to ensuring the provision of adequate and efficient infrastructure in the FCT saying “given its rapid population growth, the adequate state of domestic water supply in the FCT necessitated the need to explore other sources of water to supplement the present supply from the Usuma Dam. This led to the birth of the Gurara Water Transfer Project, which is expected to be able to meet the average daily raw water demand of the FCT in the next 50 years. I am informed that this project which consists of a dam with a reservoir capacity of 880 million cubic meters and a 3metre-diameter, 75 kilometer-long steel pipeline, is one of the few of its kind that exist in Africa today,’’ he said, adding that the availability of water in the Dam has given birth to the power plant Kaduna State is building and a 2000 hectare irrigation scheme with the potentials for small-scale industries, job creation, poverty reduction and wealth creations”. It was gathered that the irrigation component of Gurara Dam is designed in phases; the first of which is a test irrigation farm, where groundnuts, rice, maize, sugarcane and pineapple have been planted. The second phase is on a 2000 hectare irrigation scheme which is also on and is being irrigated through surface, sprinkler and drip irrigation. The 2000 hectare is located close to the local community for their benefit and has Banana, Pineapple, citrus, sugarcane, tomatoes, onions, maize and wheat. The third phase involves a 14,000 hectare scheme which covers part of FCT, Kaduna and Niger with the potential of producing about 100,000 tonnes of food annually.
The Nation investigations revealed that the current Vice President, Mohammed Namadi Sambo was said to have approached the federal government with a view to allowing the state tap into the power component of the dam and utilising it for the revival of the industrial sector in the state. Sambo who was then the governor of Kaduna state was said to be concern about the power situation in the state and on realizing that a solution can be found from the Gurara dam initiated the power project which was later taken over by the federal government and the cost built into the dam project contract. In this regard, the dam is expected to generate 30 megawatts of electricity which will be evacuated to the Kudenda, one of the two industrial estates in Kaduna metropolis for use of some of the comatose industries. However, The Nation was told that one factory, the Northern Noodles will take about 10 megawatts of the 30 megawats of electricity to be generated from the dam. Although the power component of the dam has been completed, construction of the 132 KV line covering about 111 km to evacuate the power from Gurara dam to the Kudenda power plant is yet to fully commence. However, preliminary work on the power line has commenced at the dam site. All the facilities needed to operate the power projects have also been put in place. It was however gathered that the dam has the capacity to generate up to 600 megawatts of electricity.
However, it was also not clear if there are arrangements for the host communities to benefit from the power that will be generated from the dam.
