Broken pipe lands Gwarinpa in water crisis
A substantial part of the Gwarinpa District in Abuja in the FCT has been thrown into a water crisis as a result of a broken pipe that supplies water to the area. Our reporter visited the site of the damaged pipe located beneath an interchange flyover under construction that will link Gwarimpa with Gishiri and […]
The pipes beneath an interchange flyover bridge in Gwarimpa, Abuja
A substantial part of the Gwarinpa District in Abuja in the FCT has been thrown into a water crisis as a result of a broken pipe that supplies water to the area.
Our reporter visited the site of the damaged pipe located beneath an interchange flyover under construction that will link Gwarimpa with Gishiri and also extend to Maitama District, and observed that there were no engineers to attend to the vandalised pipe.
A resident, Idris Abdullahi, said that as a result of the water scarcity, many residents were only left with the option to rely on water vendors, with a 10-jerry can truck costing as high as N5,000.
Abdullahi, who expressed reservation on the hygiene of the commercial water source, urged the concerned authorities to fast track the fixing of the for the eventual restoration of water supply to the community.
In a phone interview with our reporter, the District Head of Gwarimpa, Malam Umar Bayero, said the most affected residents were original natives of the community in the area called Gwarimpa village.
“We have been suffering experiencing shortage of water supply for about five months now, and this development has worsened the situation. Ahead of that, some of my people used to trek to areas like 1st Avenue to fetch water from the water board, but even that location has now been affected with the current situation.
“I want to use this medium to demand the FCT Water Board authorities to come to the public and explain the whole issue to the residents, as well as explain the effort made, if any, in solving the problem.”
An official of the FCT Water Board who spoke under condition of anonymity, said the ongoing road project earlier tampered with a pipeline within the community and was yet to be fixed when the recent one was vandalised.
He suggested realignment of the affected pipe from beneath the bridge and wondered why the pipe should be laid around there, in the first place.
The General Manager (GM) of the FCT Water Board, Daniel Salka, did not respond to phone calls ahead of filing this report.