Niger residents thirsty in midst of abundant rivers

For many residents of Niger State, access to clean water is a pipe dream despite the presence of major dams and water bodies, writes CHIKA OTUCHIKERE

Different strokes for different folks you could call it but despite the abundance of water bodies, including the River Niger, Niger State is grappling with a major challenge – the lack of potable water.

In the cities, especially Minna, and others like Suleja, Bida, and Kontagora, residents have continued to lament the non-availability of potable water supply.

For the affected residents, the scenario brings to mind the famous line, “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink,” in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.

Niger has three dams – Kainji, Jebba, and Shiroro dams – and a good number of rivers which many expect should ordinarily address the challenge of lack of drinkable water in the state. However, this is not the case as residents in Minna continuously lament that they hardly get a water supply.

While this major problem has persisted, unlike the popular lyrics from the famous Afrobeat musician, the late Fela Kuti, the abundance of water bodies has also become an enemy for many of those who use them as a means of transportation. In rural areas, rivers and dams that dot many communities have left sorrows and tears as the indigenes regularly witness boat accidents that claim the lives of their loved ones.

A resident in one of the communities close to the state water board, Suleiman Abubakar, lamented that he had not accessed pipe-borne water in his area in the last 15 years. Abubakar, a civil servant in one of the state’s ministries, told Saturday PUNCH that getting potable water to drink had always been a struggle for him and his family.

“We do not talk about potable water in my area. It does not exist. For 15 years, we have never known anything like pipe-borne water.

“We have a borehole that supplies us with water. Sometimes, we rely on ‘Mai Ruwa’ (water vendors) to supply us with water. I don’t know what the water board people are doing because most areas in Minna lack potable water,” he added.

Another resident, Cordelia Uwandu, who owns a shop in the area said the scarcity of drinkable water remained one of the major problems in the Minna metropolis. She said though her residence was connected by the water board to access the pipe-borne water supply, its availability was a rarity.

According to her, despite this, she and other tenants received bills from the board officials every month for a service not provided.

“The state has a water board but its job is just to collect bills from the residents without supplying the water, “ she said.

Uwandu added, “We depend on ‘Mai Ruwa’ most of the time and the water supplied by ‘Mai Ruwa’ is not drinkable because it is heavily loaded with alkaline. It makes it very heavy in the mouth.”

“We have tried to contact the water board people but it has proved useless because they will never come to fix it. Meanwhile, when you go to some areas, you see houses that have pumps outside with the water wasting, maybe because the pump has a leakage and there’s no one from the water board to fix the leakage until it stops running on its own.

“We are tired of complaining, we take life as we see it and spend money on ‘Mai Ruwa’ so that we can have water. Water is very necessary in life.”

Similarly, Banjo Oguntade, a resident in Chanchaga who works in a private insurance firm, told Saturday PUNCH that though he had a tap in his compound, he never expected water all the time.

Explaining to our correspondent, Oguntade said, “It is when we see the water that we take it. For the past nine days, we have not had running water in our compound. Last week, I saw the water running but it was dirty. We could not use it to wash clothing or plates, nor bathe or cook with it.

“This is what happens most times. The water does not run for some days and when it eventually runs, it is terrible and cannot be used.

“The irony of this thing is that even we that live in Chanchaga,  the base of water, we don’t get water. It is very bad. The government should address this water challenge because it is a major problem. Niger State boasts of rivers and dams which make it easy for the water board to source water and treat it but I still cannot understand why Minna particularly, cannot boast of a regular supply of pipe-borne water.”

My kids only clean their faces, legs before going to school – Trader

Saturday PUNCH further gathered that in a bid to conserve available water which is sold at N50 per jerry can, some residents avoid having their baths at certain times of the day.

A shop owner, Abdullahi Umar, said he bought between nine and 10 jerry cans to cover the needs of his wife and children.

“Water scarcity is really making us suffer in Niger State. We have to buy from ‘Mai Ruwa’ every day if we must use water. The water is very heavy in the mouth, so we buy sachet water for drinking.

“We use the ‘Mai Ruwa’ water for bathing, cooking and washing clothes. I had to go to my shop without taking my bath so many times, I am used to it.

“Also, my children only use just a little to clean their faces and legs before rushing off to school. My wife insists she must bathe every day but I tell her it is not necessary,” Umar.

“We don’t have a water pump in my compound so, we don’t have anything to do with the water board but I know they (the water board) exist, it is just that they are not doing their job. All the water we buy from ‘Mai Ruwa’ is from boreholes.

“It is not from the water board. The State government should come to our aid. We have rivers everywhere in Niger State but the government cannot ensure that every family has water running in their compound.

“It is very sad. If you move around Minna you will perceive the bad smell from people’s bodies. That is why many of the people wear heavy perfumes to kill body odour,” he added.

A student at the Federal University of Technoĺogy, Minna, Aisha Abubakar, expressed disbelief that successive governments in the state failed to take advantage of the rivers and dams surrounding Niger State by making clean water available.

Speaking with our correspondent, she said, “The government of Niger State does not care. As long as their little needs are met they are okay, the people can go to hell.  We use water a lot in the state but the government has not bothered to provide water. It is left in the hands of ‘Mai Ruwa’ who sell to people at exorbitant prices depending on the particular season.

“The students feel it more. A lot of times, we are forced to either go to lectures without taking our baths or just use very little water that cannot even wash a newborn baby. That is how you notice that a lot of people emit a very offensive odour. Others use very heavy-smelling perfumes to suppress the smell coming from their bodies.”

“It is very sad that despite the many rivers surrounding us, our government cannot provide running water in all the homes. The government must wake up from its slumber, know the things that affect the populace, and embark on them as priority projects.

“We cannot continue like this. We are blessed in Niger State. The rivers and dams are supposed to serve us better but the governments are playing politics just like they play politics with everything,” Abubakar added.

 Sale of water our survival tactic, not profitable  – Water vendors

Saturday PUNCH spoke with some water vendors (‘Mai Ruwa’) who said though they got many demands for water from the residents, they did not make as much profit as they expected.

One of them who gave his name as Zakari said he sold water during the dry season to support what he earned from farming during the rainy season in Sokoto where he comes from.

“It is not easy but man must survive. We don’t really make profit from the ‘Ruwa’. We sell 12 units of 16 litres of water for between N700 and N900. It only helps us to feed that day. We live in uncompleted buildings or the premises of mosques.

“We do not rent apartments because we cannot afford one and we eat only once or twice a day. Government does not care about us because they don’t even know we exist in this world.

“We only do our best to stay alive. We have no hope that things will ever be better. However, we thank God for everything and for making us see a new day every day,” Zakari said.

His colleague, who gave his name as Mohammed Isah from the Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State said a major challenge affecting their business was power shortage.

He said,  “The boreholes do not work without electricity. So, we have to wait until power is restored before we can continue our business. The day there is no power supply, we do not work and so, our customers who depend on us for water supply would have to stay without water.

“We are never happy when there is no power because we may have to starve on such days.”

Another ‘Mai Ruwa,’ Mohammed, told our correspondent that he had been in the business for over 20 years as a source of livelihood for him and his two wives and five children.

“My wives are engaged in petty trade while my children attend Islamiya schools. There is no money to put them in conventional schools. I have been doing this water supply business for over 20 years in Minna and I don’t know any other thing I can do.

“Age is not on my side and I do not expect help from anybody. Allah will continue to sustain us until he calls us to be with him. Our brothers and sisters who are in the government do not care about people like us; all they care about is themselves. Sometimes, I get monetary help from some of my kind-hearted customers but not regularly,” he lamented.

Professor Ordinioha Best of the Department of Community Medicine and Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, told our correspondent that leaving the human body unwashed could make it prone to infection with a class of diseases called “water shortage diseases”.

“There is a class of diseases called water shortage diseases. I think they have to do with hygiene. So, when people don’t take their baths, they tend to have skin diseases and of course, you know that water is also used as a coolant, especially in very hot environments.

“So, apart from those water shortage diseases, the person will lack the ability to regulate his temperature and that can result in a stroke and exhaustion and that can result in poor performance in jobs especially those involved in manual labour,” he added.

Only 45 per cent of Minna residents connected to water corporation – SWSC GM

When our correspondent contacted the Niger State Commissioner for Information, Binta Mammam, for comments, she said she would reach out to the Commissioner for Water Resources, Yahaya  Gwagwa.

However, she had yet to give our correspondent any feedback as of the time of filing the report.

But the General Manager of the State Water and Seaway Corporation, Attahiru Sulebobi, explained that only 45 per cent of residents in Minna were connected to the corporation’s water supply. He said the corporation had been making relentless efforts to see that Minna residents and other towns and cities within their jurisdiction enjoyed regular, effective, and quality supply of water.

“The previous administration of Dr Abubakar Bello committed a lot of resources in terms of provision of pumping equipment to our major water works which is the main treatment plant that supplies the entire Minna metropolis but a lot has to be done for us to get it right,” Sulebobi said.

He said the production of potable required a lot of effort which he said many residents did not understand.

Sulebobi explained, “For those that are not much conversant with water production, they might not be able to understand the concept of how water is produced. There are lots of inputs that need to be in place before you can produce affordable and quality water, for instance, the power or energy which is used for the production.

“We make use of energy to pass water from our water treatment plants to our various reservoirs in the town. And the pumping equipment too; after water is produced, it passes through the water treatment plants. And without power, we cannot operate the pumps.

“And we have been having a lot of challenges about the energy consumption in our waterworks. You know these machines tend to consume more energy. It got to the point when the bill for Chanchaga water works, on average, in a month was up to N50m, and by virtue of the sale of water, and at the flat rate, a household pays only N1,000 per month.

“The household is estimated to comprise nine people; that is just a single individual apartment. The average water mix per person per day is not up to 100 litres. From that, you can calculate the number of people we have in the town.”

In 2022, an acute water scarcity was reported in several parts of the Minna metropolis, including the Kpakungu area.

In December 2023, the  Niger State Government said it received $25,000 in support from South Korea to rehabilitate three bi-water schemes and installation of solar-powered boreholes in the state.

The Secretary to the Niger State Government, Alhaji Abubakar Usman, who disclosed this during the launch of the second phase of the state urban policy in Minna, said the fund was to rehabilitate three bi-water schemes in Beji, Tungan Mallam, and Kataergi towns and installation of solar-powered borehole, a 7.5KVA solar inverter and at Kuta General Hospital.

The financial support came through the UN-Habitat to implement the state urban policy, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

 “UN-Habitat in 2022 provided financial support of $50,000 to the state to implement two demonstration projects in different parts of the state. It has provided $25,000 to implement another two demonstration projects.

 “The second phase is designed to improve water supply and encourage hygiene practices in towns,” the SSG was quoted by NAN as saying.

However, the SWSC GM further told our correspondent that though the state was aware that the volume of clean water produced was not commensurate with what residents needed, there were challenges with the generating set, leakages, and holes in the pipelines.

“The pipelines we have are of three categories. We have the transmission lines. The transmission lines are the ones used to pump the water after it has been treated in the reservoirs, and then we have the distribution lines, which are the lines used to take water to the service lines.”

“The service lines are used to take water to the household lines. The household lines are called service lines. These service lines are connected directly to the individual homes,” he said.

But who is responsible for fixing damaged service lines?

“By virtue of our laws, the service lines are to be taken care of by the consumers or customers,” Sulebobi told Saturday PUNCH.

“They (consumers) are the ones who should take care of repairs on the service lines while the distribution lines and transmission lines, and all maintenance on those pipelines, are to be carried out by the water cooperation. So, for the developmental plan or the roadmap, you need to put something on the ground that may be a long-term, short-term, or medium-term plan.

“In Minna here, you look into the population and how people are increasing. You have to come out with a plan stating that from one year to another, you want to reach one community or the other.

“You have to put it in your budget so that every year, you have something to accomplish. Right now, in the whole town where people reside, where our pipelines cover, water can reach not more than 45 or 50 percent of the entire population, and there is a need for a huge commitment of resources to this,” he said.

It was learnt that while the state government is the major financier of water projects in the state, most of the revenue generated from such projects is predominantly used for maintenance and some services.

“The government has given us the leverage to use what we have generated to make some repairs, but there are so many bottlenecks in revenue generation, sometimes because of inadequate tools of collection or modern tools of collection.

“We are deploying a new technology in the collection (of revenue) now things are changing. In the past, revenue was collected by people in cash and those who were sent to collect the money pocketed it. They did not put it in the government coffers.

“However, now it has been reduced because of the deployment of a new technology in terms of collection. Now, you can even go to a point of sale person, get your bill, and pay into the corporation’s account. But a lot of commitment has to be made.”

He, however, maintained that the growing population and its need for potable water was a challenge.

“Even if the waterworks have been put into 100 per cent efficiency, it can no longer take charge of the whole town because as you see, the town has developed, and the population has increased. The waterworks have been in existence since 1976 with little expansion of the plant.

“The actual plant production capacity is 67,000 cubic litres per day, which is 67 million litres, and it is grossly inadequate. For us to be able to get to the optimum production that can serve the generality of people, we have to increase our capacity,” he added.