World Water Day: Groups Lament Dry Taps, Water Crisis In Nigeria
...Reject Privatization Schemes, Commodification, Uphold Human Right To Water, Govts Told
By Edu Abade
Water justice groups in Nigeria have lamented the dilapidated public water infrastructure across the country, maintaining that the situation, which has caused poor access to potable water by most Nigerians, is insensitive and unacceptable.
The groups stated this in a report titled: Dry Taps: A Damning Verdict on the State of Water Utilities in Nigeria on the sidelines of this year’s World Water Day (WWD) on Saturday, March 22, 2025.
While providing detailed solutions to the challenge, the report presents the outcomes of fact-finding visits to public water utilities in six states of the federation including Enugu, Edo, Lagos, Oyo, Kogi and Kano. The visits were conducted by the Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI),
New Life Community Care Initiative (NELCCI), Citizens Free Service Forum (CFSF), the Ecumenical Water Network Africa (EWN-A), Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Socio-Economic Research and Development Centre (SERDEC) in collaboration with the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations Civil Service Technical and Recreational Service Employees (AUPCTRE).
The report uncovered aging and crumbling infrastructure due to lack of maintenance, poor funding for purchase of treatment chemicals, erratic power supply resulting to the use of alternative power sources at huge cost, shortage of manpower and irregular payment of salaries of workers, among other challenges besetting the water utilities.
In the public presentation of the report in Abuja, AUPCTRE General Secretary, Comrade Sikiru Waheed explained that although the scope of the research is limited to six of Nigeria’s 36 states, it deliberately captures the situation in at least one state per geographical zone, making it a sneak peek into the overall picture of access to water situation across the country.
Due to manpower and resource challenges the research focused on the water situation in the cities since the rural communities where 70 percent of Nigerians reside rely on streams, rivers and in a few cases private water vendors and boreholes for their daily domestic water needs.
Executive Director of RDI, Philip Jakpor said: “The investigations we conducted exposed what is already in plain sight.
Now we can lay the blame for the parlous state of water in Nigeria on the government at the state and federal levels that continue to appropriate funds for the water sector yet there is nothing to show that the funds are used for what they are meant for. It is a wicked strategy across board to ultimately collapse the water utilities sector and pave way for their privatization.”
Executive Director of EDEN, Barrister Chima Williams said: “What we have found in all the states we visited is that the state governments are only sloganeering on ensuring their citizens have unfettered access to potable water. It is a ruse. How else can one explain their neglect of water utilities that were built with billions of naira? It is shocking and very depressing”
Similarly, Executive Director of CFSF, Comrade Sani Baba cautioned: “If the government continues on this trajectory of neglect of the water utilities then a public health disaster of unimaginable proportions is inevitable. The appetite for privatisation sweeping across the country from Lagos to Kano and the other states is a wind that will ultimately blow no good because it does not concern itself with the situation in the rural communities.”
While presenting findings from their respective states, Coordinator of EWNA, Reverend Kolade Fadahunsi, Executive Director of SERDEC, Tijani Abdulkareem and Executive Director of NELCCI, Florence Ifeanyi-Aneke said the situation in the water utilities was demoralising employees, many of whom are near retirement and there are no plans on ground to replace them.
In Kano, the three waterworks combined only meet the needs of less than 10 percent of the population. The case is similar to Enugu where the previous administration voted billions of naira for expanding the network of the waterworks but nothing on ground to show what the funds were judiciously utilised. Currently, the Enugu Water Corporation has only 11, 234 customers.
At the Eleyele Scheme in Ibadan a disturbing sight in the premises is the number of electricity generators used to pump water due to the erratic power supply. In Edo State the Ikpoba River Dam, which is supposed to feed the waterworks in Ugbowo and Iyaro has been left fallow. Some privately owned fish ponds were also located within the vicinity.
The dam which used to produce over 90MGD, was confirmed to be no longer operational as the pumping facility had been abandoned.
Kogi State is also in the red as the Greater Lokoja Waterworks and all other zonal sub-station offices are not producing water and have been locked down since the 2022 floods damaged them.
In Lagos, about N760 million was committed to rehabilitation of the 48 mini and micro waterworks in 2017 following findings that there was already a deficit of 500 million gallons per day of water supply in the state. Subsequently, the state government appropriate huge amounts for the sector yearly, but disturbingly, nothing on ground suggests that the funds were judiciously used, as most of the waterworks remain comatose, impaired or at best operate far below their installed capacities. The Adiyan and Iju Waterworks visited in the course of this investigation work sub-optimally.
The groups recommended that the government should urgently address the water crisis including the need for the declaration of a state of emergency on the water sector and the integration of broad public participation in formulating plans to achieve universal access to water.
They urged the federal and state governments to reject all forms of water privatization and commodification and the need for them to fully uphold the human right to water as an obligation of the government, representing the people.
They also demanded a probe of the billions of naira in loans for the countless water schemes across the federation and the strengthening of public accountability in the management of water resources, among others.
