By Edu Abade
A group advocating for the rights to potable water and constant power supply, especially for vulnerable women and girls in low-income rural communities of Nigeria and Africa have decried lack of access to clean and affordable water, as well as electricity in Badeku Community, Ona-Ara Council of Oyo State.
The group, Help Initiative for Social Justice and Humanitarian Development lamented that for over 15 years, residents of Badeku Community and its environs had suffered silently as they grappled with the lack of access to water and electricity.
In response to the dire situation, a team of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) led by Aderonke Ige, visited the community on Saturday, March 8, 2025 to hold town hall sessions with women and representatives of the community on the sidelines of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD).
A representative of the Baale of Badeku, Prince Mathew Raji, who received a delegation of the NGO in the community, commended the team for the visit and taking the decisive step to Badeku in spite of the bad roads and difficulty of accessibility.
He said the gesture was a demonstration of humanness and empathy and urged the team to support the community by highlighting their plight so that the relevant authorities can take necessary action.
Other spokesmen for the community including the Youth Leader (Olori Odo Badeku), Chief Adeyemo Ramon decried the lack of government presence in Badeku and its surrounding communities, saying that it is desirable for the government to get closer to the people, as they feel abandoned.
Speaking, Aderonke Ige, a lawyer and development advocate empathized with the community and assured them that the organisation would amplify the voice of the community in calling attention to the needs of Badeku and other affected communities in Ona-Ara Council.
The Help Initiative then held a special dialogue with the theme: The Woman and Her Water with groups of women in Badeku, interrogating the impact of the lack of water on the women and girls in the community.
During an interactive session, the women spoke passionately about the challenges they face, including poor menstrual hygiene, maternal health and cultural burden of domestic care work worsened by the lack of such a resource as critical and essential as water.
Traditional head of women in the community, Iyalode, Chief Mrs. Moromoke Ajabi, said the lack of water in the community is especially burdensome for the women, adding: “We are saddled with the responsibility of caring for the hygiene needs of our homes, including bathing the children, cooking, fetching water and so on. But how do you fetch the water that you do not even see?”
Another community women leader and educator, Chief (Mrs.) Olusola Oyedele, said: “Badeku used to have government pipe-borne water about 15 years ago when we first sited our farms here: mainly poultry and piggery. But now, that is history!
Oyedele narrated the worrisome experiences of children, who she encounters daily as the Vice Principal of a school, saying: “Some of these children, mostly girls, come to school tired and exhausted. You can tell that they have trekked long distances in search of water before coming to school.
“Once they get to school, fatigue sets in and they are not able to perform up to their natural abilities, neither are they able to assimilate. Most of the time, it leads to truancy, because they begin to run away from school, thinking they are dull and have no capacity for excellence or high performance. It is indeed a chain of saddening realities,” she concluded.
The Otun Iyalode, Madam Sikiratu Seb’otimo and Madam Bunmi Busari narrated how lack of access to water, coupled with the unavailability of access road in Badeku Community has resulted in quantifiable losses in their businesses.
For Busari, a cassava and palm farmer, she stressed that most of the time, after the planting season, they have to wait for the rains to nurture their crops, saying: “When we manage to harvest, half of our produce go to waste because nobody wants to come to Badeku to buy produce, as there is no decent road. It is too risky for them to reach us and we do not have the resources to reach them, so we lose!”
Speaking on the distance the women and girls travel to fetch water, Madam Mojirola Ogundipe lamented that the hardship faced by women in the community have become unbearable. She narrated how, during the rainy season, they use of rain water for both drinking and other domestic needs. But once it is dry season, the challenge worsens.
In her words, “Most women cover at least a kilometer or two to get drinking water from people who have dug wells, but for washing, bathing and house chores, there are flowing rivers up to 1 kilometer to the town.”
While responding to collective issues raised by the women, the Help Initiative team comprising Olubunmi Eyelade, Adedayo Ige, Oluwanimilo Ola-Olorun, Olufunke Oyinlola, Marvelous Nwaogwugwu and Barrister Fola Awoyemi each explained different aspects of the engagement in the community, such as people-power building and the need for strategic engagement with the government. The team curated role plays, positioning the women for possible advocacy experiences.
Speaking to after the event, Help Initiative urged the government at all levels not to fall into the trap of corporatization while attempting to solve the problem of water in Badeku, as that would be an eventual trap and a recipe for disaster, stressing that privatisation of public resources at the expense of the people has never yielded good results in any part of the world.
The group charged the government to strengthen the public water sector towards effectiveness and productivity, promising to offer technical and strategic support to the government in designing a people-centered and democratic approach to resolving the problem of water in Badeku Community.
