Are we increasing access to safe or unsafe water?

Mohammed, a 10-year-old boy in Kaura Namoda, one of the cities in Zamfara State, is out of school but he has devised a way of fending for his daily needs. He and other colleagues have dug a hole in the bed of the dried River Gabake, daily fetching water to sell to the public for […]

Mohammed, a 10-year-old boy in Kaura Namoda, one of the cities in Zamfara State, is out of school but he has devised a way of fending for his daily needs. He and other colleagues have dug a hole in the bed of the dried River Gabake, daily fetching water to sell to the public for drinking and household uses.
Like Mohammed, a lot of other children in the country are engaged one way or the other in the supply of water to households for various uses from unimaginable sources, yet the Federal Government says the country has over 33 billion cubic metres of bulk water in the various dams across the country.
Today, most Nigerians in both urban and rural areas rely on water vendors for their daily water supply following the collapse of public water system in most states of the federation and even Abuja.
These vendors who are unskilled and uneducated know little or nothing about hygiene. What occupies their minds is their own survival- how to get water and sell in order to earn a means of livelihood. Health of those who patronise them means nothing to them.
They usually use jerry cans which come in either 10 or 20 litres and sell to their client from N20 per container. But Dr Agnes Jimoh, a medical doctor with a private medical clinic in Marraba, a surbub of Abuja, said that most times, the jerry cans used by the vendors develop fungi which are injurious to human health. “Most people patronise the water vendors without knowing that constant use of the jerry cans without proper washing ensure they develop fungus which are injurious to their health,” he said
This, therefore, means the poor and less privilege Nigerians are caught between the devil and deep blue sea as they cannot afford to sink borehole in their homes and the public tap system is not functional. So, they are forced to rely on water vendors.
The issue was even compounded recently when, Dr Michael Ojo, WaterAid Nigeria Country Representative, declared that 63 million Nigerians are without access to clean drinking water.
Ojo’s claim was supported by the Minister of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Reng Ochekpe, who said at the celebration of the WWD that only 60 per cent of Nigeria’s population had access to safe drinking water.
But experts in the water sector, however, contest the claims. Specifically, they ask: what constitutes a safe drinking water and how is access determined?
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF guidelines, access to drinking water means that the source of water is less than one kilometre away from its place of use and that it is possible to reliably obtain, at least, 20 litres per member of a household, per day, while safe drinking water is water with microbial, chemical and physical characteristics that meet WHO guidelines or national standards on drinking water quality. Access to safe drinking water, the guideline noted, is the proportion of people using improved drinking water sources: household connection; public standpipe; borehole; protected dug well; protected spring; rainwater.
For Mr Martin Ido, an Abuja-based medical doctor, less than 20 per cent of Nigerians have access to safe drinking water based on the WHO guidelines. He said, “We are living in a country where no one cares about set standards, bottle water and sachet water are being produced in uncompleted buildings and backyards all over the country so who is monitoring to see that they comply with set standard?”
Mrs Kola Justina, a hydrology doctorate student said she has never seen nor read the Nigeria drinking water standard. “How then can we talk of complying with a standard that is not known, the truth of the matter is that Nigerians are having increasing access to unsafe water,” she argues.
WaterAid Nigeria noted recently that lack of process in increasing access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene was acting as a brake on progress in economic and human development, particularly in child health, nutrition and education.
WaterAid Country Representative added: “Water, sanitation and hygiene are so central to every aspect of life that all sustainable development is made impossible without clean water and access to sanitation and hygiene facilities. It damages developing economies such as Nigeria which loses around N455 billion – 1.3 per cent of its GDP each year due to poor water, sanitation and hygiene and its effects.”
So, is all hope lost in Nigeria? Ochekpe, Minister of Water Resources says no. According to her: “As a government, we are improving water access but it is important for Nigerians to know that the responsibilities of increasing access to water is not our primary duty but that of state and local governments, on the part of the federal government, we have provided dams and other facilities for states to take advantage of in providing safe water for their people.”
She blamed the state and local governments for not doing enough in providing water to the people.
As the Federal Government is passing the blame to states, individuals and communities have taken their destinies in their own hands as it is now a common practice for wealthy individuals to sink boreholes in their compounds while communities who cannot afford the funds to sink boreholes are now left at the wings and caprices of politicians who seek for their votes.
“Politicians have turned our water situation into a campaign issue as every election year, they come here and promise us borehole, some come back to sink the borehole but others we never see them after getting our votes,” says Ahmed Sani, an elder living in Masaka along Keffi-Abuja highway.
A ray of hope may be coming the way of Nigerians and other West African countries following the coming onboard of a platform known as Save Water for Africa Partnership (SWAP) which has generated over $5 million to provide clean and safe water for about 5 million people in the sub-region in the next five years.
WaterAid also plans to work aggressively to ensure that everyone, including all Nigerians have universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.
As we celebrated the Water Day, it is important we remind government not to lose focus of its ambitious target of increasing water and sanitation coverage by 75 per cent and 65 per cent respectively by 2015.
Regrettably, however, records show that rather than improve, coverage of water and sanitation have been on a steady decline from 37 per cent in 1990 to 31 per cent in 2011.