On Tuesday, Nigeria joined the rest of humanity to mark the World Water Day, being a day set aside by the United Nations to draw the world’s attention to the plight of billions of people without access to safe and readily available water. In this report, CHINAKA OKORO examines the water situation in Nigeria and the country’s level of commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
ecently, Chinweokwu Eberechukwu, 14, was hospitalised for one week after he suddenly fell ill days before the end-of-term examinations. Confused, his educated parents quickly took him for medical examination in a public hospital after which he was diagnosed of having diarrhoea. The fact that his faeces were a mixture of blood and yellowish fluid threw his parents off balance.
Being a well-to-do family, the entire household were surprised as to what could be the cause of the illness. To them, the family’s apartment, including toilets and bathrooms, are always kept neat. They ensured that all they eat are well prepared, and any food remnants are well covered to prevent flies and rodents from perching and eating them. The cause of the ailment was mere conjecture.
Not willing to give up on the actual cause of his illness, the family decided to monitor what the young boy eats and drinks, so much so that one of Chinweokwu’s teachers was detailed to keep a tab on his activities in school, including what he consumes. Chinweokwu’s class teacher, Mr Paul Udeagu, who was committed to his assignment, literally struck gold within days. Chinweokwu sneaked out of school premises with one of his friends during the break hours to bathe and drink from a nearby river – an unsafe water source!
It then dawned on Chinweokwu’s parents that a filthy environment resulting from the polluted source of drinking water was the cause of the boy’s illness. His is a case out of several cases where contaminated water sources pose hazards to human health. Humankind is experiencing an acute water shortage. Where water exists, it may not be safe for consumption. Concerned this, the United Nations has declared the March 23 of every year as the World Water Day through which it draws attention to global crisis occasioned by acute water shortage.
Awareness creation and why groundwater matters
According to the UN, safe and readily available water is important for public health, whether it is used for drinking, domestic use, food production or recreational purposes. Improved water supply and sanitation, and better management of water resources, can boost countries’ economic growth and can contribute greatly to poverty reduction, UN has declared.
The World Water Day (WDD) celebrates water and raises awareness of the estimated 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is all about taking action to tackle the global water crisis. A core focus of WDD is to support the achievements of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6, which is water and sanitation for all by 2030. This is to ensure that all have access to safe water throughout the world by 2030. An ambitious reverie, we may say.
This year’s WDD has its theme as “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible.” The theme aims at highlighting how important groundwater is to the environment. In his message for this year’s event, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres noted that groundwater is an invisible resource with an impact visible everywhere.
“Groundwater is water found underground in aquifers, which are geological formations of rocks, sands and gravels that hold substantial quantities of water. Groundwater feeds springs, rivers, lakes and wetlands, and seeps into oceans. Groundwater is recharged mainly from rain and snowfall infiltrating the ground. Groundwater can be extracted to the surface by pumps and wells.
“Life would not be possible without groundwater. Most arid areas of the world depend entirely on groundwater. Groundwater supplies a large proportion of the water we use for drinking, sanitation, food production and industrial processes. It is also critically important to the healthy functioning of ecosystems, such as wetlands and rivers.
“Exploring, protecting and sustainably using groundwater will be central to surviving and adapting to climate change and meeting the needs of a growing population.”
On why the world focuses on groundwater and why it should be protected, the UN chief noted that “humanity’s demand for water is growing. Pressure on water resources is increasing due to overuse, pollution and climate change. Droughts and heatwaves are becoming more intense and more frequent. Sea-level rise is driving salt-water intrusion into coastal aquifers. Groundwater aquifers are being depleted.”
Stressing why humankind should work in concert to ensure that there is co-operation and not conflict with regard to providing better stewardship of all water resources, Guterres said water can be a source of conflict but also of co-operation. “It is essential that we work together to provide better stewardship of all water sources, including the world’s supply of groundwater. Stored in rocks and soil, groundwater is our biggest source of liquid freshwater. It sustains drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farming, industry and ecosystems. Yet, some 20 per cent of the world’s aquifers are being overexploited. We need to improve our exploration, monitoring and analysis of groundwater resources to protect and better manage them and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”
According to the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), groundwater has been out of sight and out of mind for too long despite its significance to human health and survival. When groundwater is protected, lives and ecosystems are saved because groundwater improves health, reduces hunger and tackles climate change, says SIWI. However, just because groundwater is hidden from sight, SIWI warns that little attention is paid to it; so much so that it may be destroyed without noticing that “it is the world’s most abundant freshwater resource and a crucial regulator of water extremes such as floods and drought.”
How governments
can reverse the trend
Dr John Cherry, a recipient of the Stockholm Water Prize in 2020 for his work on groundwater, has noted that with the current approach to groundwater, the world is headed for a monumental disaster. For the ugly trend to be reversed by governments, Cherry recommended five actions to avert the catastrophe. The first is what he termed precautionary principle, which entails “recognising that the dire situation for groundwater is a result of many unintended consequences. The PP must be the guiding principle for groundwater governance.”
The second recommendation by Cherry is shifting to cradle-to-cradle production; instead of today’s current practice of cradle-to-grave manufacturing. As a result of this, he said groundwater ends up as the grave for harmful chemicals from manufacturing processes and from products. “But cradle-to-cradle thinking is becoming more common. In a circular economy, no manufacturing processes and products emit chemicals harmful to water.”
Changing food habits is the third of his propositions. Cherry said this is important because “nearly all of the groundwater depletion and most groundwater pollution result from modern chemical agriculture. Ecological agriculture is better, as it is a form of cradle-to-cradle production applied to food, he said.
“Humankind should also move away from eating beef. Impose taxes or penalties on groundwater pollution caused by agriculture and eliminate government subsidies that contribute to groundwater unsustainability.”
His fourth recommendation is establishing effective groundwater monitoring. “Modern monitoring methods for groundwater levels and hydrochemistry with data transparency in all areas where groundwater is a significant resource should be used. Modern cost-effective methods exist, including technology for real-time data recording…”
Strengthening groundwater governance is his fifth proposal. He noted that “groundwater depletion and pollution can often be attributed to poor governance, frequently stemming from a lack of knowledge about groundwater. There is a need to make groundwater science more accessible…and to raise capacity about groundwater governance.”
How much of Nigeria has clean water?
A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. A United Nations Children’s Fund report on poor access to clean water states that poor access to improved water and sanitation in Nigeria remains a major contributing factor to high morbidity and mortality rates among children below five. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 by 2030 requires extraordinary efforts.
Although about 70 per cent of Nigerians are reported to have access to basic water services, more than half of the water sources are contaminated. Experts believe that water scarcity affects all social and economic sectors, as it increases stress on freshwater resources.
Correcting a dangerous notion held by some leaders of some developing countries that have the warped view that their seldom provision of food and water to the downtrodden is a great achievement and favour done to the poor, an environmental chemist and lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), Mrs Ugomma Egwim, said water and food are not only essential elements of life; they are also universally recognised human rights. The right to water and the right to food go hand-in-hand, she said.
The General Assembly of the United Nations, having realised that safe water supply and adequate sanitation to protect health care are among the basic human rights, said all social and economic activities rely heavily on the supply and quality of water.
Achieving food security is a high priority in Nigeria, and agriculture must not only provide food for the rising population but also safe water for other uses. The challenge, experts say, is to develop and supply water-saving technology and management methods, and through capacity building. They also maintain that non-availability of water supplies of suitable quality is a significant limiting factor to livestock production and improper disposal of animal wastes can, in certain circumstances; result in pollution of water supplies for humans and animals.
Based on UN mandates, and drawing from the fact that this year’s WWD highlights the significance of groundwater to the environment, questions such as, what is the water situation in Nigeria like and how are Nigerians coping with water scarcity may be asked. Several indications point to Nigeria and Nigerians having acute water problems resulting from a scarcity of water, irrespective of their being surrounded by massive water bodies.
The UN has been warning of the future world water crisis since 2000. But while the developed and other developing countries are busy finding solutions or trying to prevent the looming catastrophe, Nigeria seems to be helpless as to how to tackle its water problems. Pundits say half of Nigeria’s population has no access to clean water and many women and children walk for hours a day searching for water to fetch.
Agreed, the Federal Government has spent billions of naira in its bid to provide safe and clean water, but it seems that the investments have dried up in the pipes. Almost everywhere, the taps are dry; that is where there are water taps.
A foretaste of water crisis in Nigeria
The effect of the water crisis in Nigeria is not just in time and energy wasted for all that are affected. “Diseases that are otherwise preventable are rampant among the poor in Nigeria. This is so because most diseases gain access to the body through the food or water that we eat and drink.”
States and communities in Nigeria have tales of woes to tell about water availability. In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which is Nigeria’s seat of power, one would have thought that dry taps would not feature in its list of worries. However, the availability of water has always been a challenge for residents in the FCT, especially in areas such as Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi, Kpeyegi, Kurudu, Karishi, Orozo, among others.
For residents in these areas, they have had to resort to either self-help (personal boreholes) or rely on suppliers of water locally called meruwa. The challenge with getting water from the meruwa is that one does not know where they get their water from. Sadly, some of the residents have had to grapple with some water-borne diseases such as cholera because they have no other choice than to fetch their drinking water from the same nearly-stagnant stream where others defecate and have their baths.
Commenting on the water situation in Nigeria and Lagos in particular, Uchenna Ugwueze, a lawyer, noted with dismay that it is unfortunate that Nigerians are suffering from acute water scarcity despite the huge water bodies the country is blessed with. To show how serious the matter is; if water vendors make brisk business in an area such as Ikeja, which is Lagos State capital that is supposed to have flowing taps 24 hours, then imagine what the situation will be in areas that are regarded as ghettos.
He lamented the indiscriminate sinking of boreholes and wells in almost every compound which, he said, serve as sources of water supply in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital. Uchenna added that “these are sunk without proper geophysical survey as some are sunk very close to septic tanks, pit latrines, and waste dump sites.”
Blaming the unconstructive water situation on the state government, the legal practitioner, said: “The government has not done much in the provision of water, which is very much essential in our everyday life. It is less concerned about people’s well-being in terms of providing safe, potable water for the people as a result of infrastructural decay. The government is insensitive to the plight of the people because they have free safe and clean water.”
If Nigerians lament over water crisis in Lagos and FCT, the situation in many Nigerian states is far worse.
Is water availability
justiciable?
He, however, regretted that the issue of provision of infrastructure such as water is not justiciable. In other words, no one can sue the government for not providing water or any other amenity. “The law provides that the government should provide infrastructure for the people, but the same law does not provide that the people have the right to take the government to court to enforce that right,” he said.
Mr Chukuma Nwose, a Professor of Finance and Human Resources Management and the External Coordinator, Strategic Plan Development and Implementation Directorate, Office of the Vice-Chancellor, the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Efurum Warri, Delta State, canvassed the same view as Barrister Ugwueze, even though he said pipe-borne water is now a luxury and a status symbol instead of it being a necessity and one of the fundamental rights of the people through whose votes the leaders got into government.
“In a country with huge water bodies, it is embarrassing that the people are resigned to fate and continued to fetch and drink water from questionable sources such as rivers, ponds, burst pipes and wells. This is happening in a country where there are abundant fresh water and massive water bodies.”
The finance expert pointed out that Nigerians, especially those in the cities, hugely depend on water from wells and boreholes, which are littered in almost every compound; a situation he said portends danger. He maintained that the adverse effects of every compound having a well or borehole are better imagined.
“A situation where wells and boreholes are in every compound, especially in the cities is dangerous to the environment. It is a hazardous situation that adversely affects our environment. Imagine this scenario. If there are 20 houses on a street, and each of them has either a well or borehole, it means that in that particular street, there are 20 deep holes made into the soil, which invariably makes the soil very hollow. If not that God loves Nigeria, such situation is a harbinger to earthquakes,” he said.
When contacted, the Special Adviser to Governor Babatunde Sanwo-Olu on Drainage and Water Resources, Office of Drainage Services and Water Resources of the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Chief Joe Igbokwe, referred our correspondent to the Lagos State Water Corporation, saying it is the corporation’s responsibility to comment on the water situation in the state. When reminded that the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources should be in a better position to comment on the water situation in Lagos State, he insisted that it was within the purview of the Lagos State Water Corporation.
Contrary viewpoint
However, a member of staff of the Lagos State Water Corporation, who spoke to our correspondent in confidence, offered a defence for the corporation’s inability to live up to expectations. “Although Lagos is naturally surrounded by water, many people think that it is easy to provide people with the required potable water. They forget that this water is salty and does not meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard of potable water and therefore unfit for human consumption.” He, however, said that the corporation has been making frenetic efforts to improve the water situation in the state.
As the world marks this year’s World Water Day (WWD) tomorrow, it is expected that the Nigerian government should take advantage of the day and appraise its actions or inactions with regard to the provision of safe water for its citizens. The government should take concrete steps towards implementing the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will ensure integrated water resources development and management, drinking water supply and sanitation, sustainable rural and urban development, sustainable food production, and alleviation of poverty and hunger. This will take Nigeria to a higher level of progress and development.