Water, it is said, has no enemy. This is indeed an unarguable truth as there is no human that can obviously survive without water in whatever form it appears. Indeed, water has been described as life itself and a lack of it, leads to various issues; health, environmental and a wide range of challenges.
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All over the world, the lack of access to potable water has been a growing concern for long. And according to World Bank reports, over 2.1 billion people across the world do not have access to safe drinking water while 4.5 billion people lack access to secure managed sanitation.
In developing nations, the water situation seems more pronounced. And in Nigeria, even across megacities where there is constant attempt at civilization and creating a modern society, the beauty most times is a façade covering dirt, poverty and death. Indeed, across cities in Nigeria, households are self reliant when it comes to issues of basic amenities; they provide their shelter, power, security and such basic needs without government help.
Many households in Nigeria do not have a source of water supply and consequently depends on external avenues from neighbouring homes which often, is streets away from their abode. This water supply is usually from wells in the city and from streams in the rural communities, putting a question mark on the quality of water that is ingested by Nigerians.
Many homes that have water do not consider the hygiene or environmental issues of where their source of water is located, consequently, even those that have water are vulnerable to water borne disease and this is why it is easy to have disease epidemics and spread of diseases in communities within the country.
According to a 2017 World Bank report, clean water provided in Nigeria in the year 2015 did not get to 10 per cent of its inhabitants and to save the country from the precipice, it is said that it needs an investment of up to eight billion dollars to provide potable water for the country if it will achieve part of its Sustainable Development Goals by the benchmark of 2030.
To get water in many communities is a daily struggle and often, it is the issue of survival of the fittest. No state is left out of the water crisis in Nigeria but reports indicate that the North East region of the country suffer more from the pangs as 83 per cent of homes lack water supply. The South -South region is also suffering followed by the North Central.
This however doesn’t mean other regions are well off. In the Southwest, communities especially in rural areas depend on stream water and often, the same source of drinking water serves as the toilet, Laundromat and bathroom for the people. And even in the cities, there are communities that suffer worse fate.
An example of such can be found in Foko community in the ancient city of Ibadan, a community that seems to always be left behind in the glitz and glamour of a modern city and inhabitants have no access to toilets, health facilities, water or safe living conditions.
A report states that not only do houses in this area like water supply, they also have no toilet facilities and the whole community of around 1000 households share a public latrine. “We are so many here and we have no water, it is also true that we have only one toilet which the whole community maintains. People say that children here drink water contaminated by dirt and faeces but that is what we all drink, we know the water is not pure but getting clean water is expensive and few can afford it regularly” Adijat Kamorudeen, a resident stated.
Research shows that the inhabitants drink water that they fetch from wells which are exposed to excreta. And this is the situation in many other communities. The Country Director, WaterAid Nigeria, Dr Michael Ojo, once confirmed that in sub-Saharan Africa, women spend combined total of at least 16 million hours each day collecting drinking water. Yet, 57.7 million Nigerians do not have access to safe drinking water while thousands of children die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.
This was also reiterated by an official of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Zaid Jurgi, who stated that over 60 million Nigerians still lack access to potable water, adding that if nothing is done, only 72 per cent of Nigerians will have access to potable water by 2030, emphasising the need for more investment to ensure access to potable water.
As the World Water Week of this year comes to a close, the water crisis continues to be one of the greatest challenges in Nigeria and more Nigerians in their thousands continue to die from lack of safe water.
Water crisis presents a global challenge and it is said that two thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. Currently, over 663 million people in the world lack access to improved drinking water sources, according to World Bank report.
The implication of unsafe water is dire according to the WHO as water safety and quality are fundamental to human development and wellbeing because of the myriad of health issues that may stem from consuming unsafe water. The organization believes that improving access to safe water will lead to improvements in health as providing safe water is one of the key measures in reducing poverty and promoting good health.
Reducing poverty by providing access to potable water was a major discussion at the 2018 World Water Week, the annual global event for concretely addressing the planet’s water issues and related concerns of international development with the theme, “Water, ecosystems and human development” which held between August 26– 31 in Stockholm.
The programme (World Water Week) enabled participants from hundreds of countries form partnerships and review implementation towards advancing the world’s water, environment, health, livelihood and poverty reduction agendas. Key themes of the World Water Week 2018 which brought world leaders, water experts, development professionals and business representatives from all over the world together bordered on how poor water management and stressed ecosystems cause poverty and violent conflicts and why more nature-based solutions are urgently needed to avoid a global water crisis.
Torgny Holmgren, the Executive Director of Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), which organizes the World Water Week said that with the rapidly growing demand for water, it is becoming increasingly clear that water is everybody’s issue and scarcity of water has become the new normal in so many parts of the world.
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed, at the 2018 World Water Week spoke on the strong link between environmental degradation, poverty and violent conflicts citing Nigeria, which in recent years has suffered from terrorism and expressing the belief that the tragedy of Boko Haram is inextricably linked to poor water management, adding that the solution to the conflict in the region must include equitable ways of using water resources.
Åsa Regnér, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director, Director for the Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Bureau, at UN Women supported this as she described lack of water as a root cause of poverty and inequality since “only in Sub-Saharan Africa, women and girls spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water, equivalent to a year’s worth of labour by the entire workforce in France.”
As the World Water Week 2018 ends today, it is hoped that the optimism expressed by speakers about the increase in new solutions borrowed from nature will help the world especially Nigeria.
and then