When the community well dries up, residents, including weak, old people, trek far in search of water. That is why a non-governmental organisation, WaterAid Nigeria, which visited two communities in Plateau State, wants government to provide water and protect citizens against diseases and death. FRANK IKPEFAN reports
The plight of residents of Wentul and Patishi, two communities in Pankshin Local Government Area, Plateau State, typifies the general challenges across the country. In the two communities in Jos South Local Government Area, safe water is a luxury. The residents rely on the community well and when it dries up, they walk a long distance to scoop water from a small, shallow pit beside a sizeable rock. The water from the well and the pit is unfit for drinking, but the residents have no choice.
They know that their sanitation profile is woeful and there are no medical facilities. The people sigh in resignation because they cannot help the situation.
Stakeholders in the water sector have expressed concern over politicians’ apparent lack of interest in tackling water, sanitation and hygiene or WASH issues in the run-up to the general elections. The various candidates vying for positions, they say, have not given priority to WASH in their campaigns.
They explained that access to basic social amenities such as safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene remains the responsibility of governments, whether federal or state.
The Country Representative of WaterAid Nigeria, an international agency, Dr. Michael Ojo said that Nigeria remains one of only a handful of countries around the world where access to basic sanitation is actually falling rather than rising.
According to him, only 28 per cent of the population has access to basic sanitation (over 100 million people have no access to improved sanitation). He explained that access to sanitation has continued to decrease from 37 per cent in 1990 to 32 per cent in 2000 and just 28 per cent in 2012.
Ojo said that 23 per cent (nearly 40 million) of the population practice open defecation while 36 per cent lack access to improved water sources (over 60 million) and around 68,000 children under the age of five in Nigeria die from diseases caused by the nation’s poor levels of access to water, sanitation and hygiene.
These figures are alarming, he said, adding that government at all levels must partner to improve access to safe water supply and sanitation. He stressed the need for politicians to not only seek for votes, but serve the people who put them there by providing services that will improve the lives of the people.
He said: “We call on our own leaders here to embrace the spirit of the Kigali Action Plan and invest the resources needed to provide safe water, sanitation and hygiene for its people.”
Although, issues of access to safe water supply, lie with the state, and local government, the Federal Government through intervention, can assist. This is because most communities in Nigeria cannot be accessed by state or local government.
For example, Wentul and Patishi communities, have same thing in commonalities: No water. No sanitation facilities. No medical care. These lacks of basic social amenities make living a daily struggle. People in the two communities located in Pankshin Local Government, Jos South, walk a far distance before they can access water from a stream.
The communities are in dire need of basic amenities of life. The women suffer most. An octogenarian was seen by this reporter trying to fetch water from what looked like an underground stream.
Hashima, a 12-year-old SS3 student, another resident of the community, explained that she wakes up 5am daily in order to access water from the rustic well, not far from her house. The result is that she arrives at school late.
“This is what I do every morning,” she explained in incoherent English. “I want the government to build hand boreholes for us so that we can go to school early.”
Hashima’s concerns where reechoed by Iliya Gowok, the chairman of the Parent Teachers Association in the community, who spoke for the village head. ”We need water, and sanitation facilities,” Gowok said. “We get water from our well and when they dry up we trek very far to the river to fetch water,” he continued.
He explained that they have to go into the bush for defecation because they lack latrines. Asked if flies from the faeces don’t affect the water they drink, he said: “We are thinking of covering the water we drink. Our calabash too needs to be covered.”
Asked if there were no water boards for the people to access safe water from, an official of the Water and Sanitation Unit (WASU) replied in the negative.
”The water board does not supply water for two or sometimes three months,” the WASU official who pleaded anonymity, told this reporter during a working visit to the state. “They base their excuse on money. Sometimes they will say they don’t have enough money to buy diesel. So our people are suffering here,” he stated.
He explained that politicians in the state are busy deceiving the electorate to vote for them again ahead of the general elections when they have failed to live up to the votes they got in 2011.
According to him, issues of sanitation and hygiene have basically been abandoned by politicians in their campaigns. He criticised the state government and local councils for failing to live up to their responsibilities.
“Our government has made access to water and sanitation a luxury. It takes international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) like WaterAid to provide water for some communities in the state,” he concluded.
On what can be done to provide safe water for both communities, The State Programme Consultant, WaterAid, Chukwuma Nnanna explained that both communities have been ‘triggered’ by the agency for immediate response.
“We are working with partners in the state to make sure that people have access to safe water and sanitation. What you have seen today makes a strong case for not just increased investment but a strong advocacy for ensuring that more of our people have access to water.
“We are supporting partners to provide facilities to communities in the state. And the two communities we visited today have already been triggered, in the sense that we have come here through our partners to encourage them to stop open defecation, and to ask them to build latrines for them to use. Most importantly, the visit is to encourage the government, stakeholders, Civil Society Organisations and everybody to come together and address the sanitation crisis.
“Many of our people don’t have access to sanitation. Many of our people still struggle to have access to safe drinking water. And this is a big concern to us in WaterAid Nigeria and every Nigerian. We are inspired to increase our partnership and advocacy,” he added.
