How Doma dam project raised hope, but frustrated irrigation farming

Those were the days Doma dam in Doma Local Government Area, then under the old Plateau State and now Nasarawa, began to attract prospective investors because of the facilities for irrigation farming, as well as fishing, which the federal government put there. The retired soldier cultivated maize and other cereals on that fertile land for […]

Those were the days Doma dam in Doma Local Government Area, then under the old Plateau State and now Nasarawa, began to attract prospective investors because of the facilities for irrigation farming, as well as fishing, which the federal government put there.
The retired soldier cultivated maize and other cereals on that fertile land for about three years, using irrigation facilities at the dam, including newly installed sprinklers in what marked the test run on the federal government initiated irrigation farming technology on the edge of Doma dam.
In the years to come, a white farmer would run from Rukubi-Ondorie, at the plains along the Benue River following constant communal crises by the natives there, to Doma. The investor took that land from General Garba, and cultivated almost twice the size of the former investor’s farm. He could go only for two years, and then fold up.  
There is availability of over 200,000 hectares of arable land for rice farming alone in the state, as a result of which Olam Nigeria Limited, a Singapore based investor, is already in the state with an investment worth US$90 million on a land size of 10,000 hectares in Rukubi-Ondorie area of Doma. This is just as JICA, another foreign investor, is cultivating rice on a land size of 15,000 hectares.
Presentations by Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to a team of investors during his meeting with a group of American businessmen, as well as the Singapore Business Forum, during his 2012 and 2013 visits to the United States and the South-East Asian countries respectively, disclosed the administration’s policy to encourage investment with the provision of land title, tax holiday and the guarantee of security to investors.
The presentations named Doma dam, as one of the state’s endowments, with facilities to give investors profit for their capital.
This reporter went down the dam itself; 16 kilometres in length, wasting with water content which was initially over 35 million cubic metres. This dam has not been put to any good use aside local fishing, and the initial skeletal irrigation farming. The water content has drastically reduced because it has silted much, and this, the authorities at the Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority (LBRBDA), in Makurdi, have confirmed, although they would not want to be quoted.
Now, the dam is hardly two feet deep, and the base is obvious from sight. Water hyacinths have also taken over with other weeds encroaching deep into the body of the water. The fishes which show up occasionally are mere fingerlings as fishermen have long depleted the dam of any life, using drag nets and chemicals, Daily Trust inquiries there have shown. They have, during the past three decades of the existence of this dam, indulged in various dangerous fishing practices, entering the dam with chemicals and dragnets, clearing it of fishes. Now, their illicit and unguided practices have depleted the habitat that was once Doma dam.
The dam project was initiated and awarded for construction in 1982, by the administration of Second Republic President Shehu Shagari at the cost of N22 million.
Doma dam was initiated to serve three purposes: irrigation, fisheries and domestic water supply to the host communities. The project was handled by the then Nigeria Construction Consortium Limited (NCC).
The company carried out major aspects of the job including the construction of the dam itself, installation of the water plants at the edge of the dam, as well as the provision and laying of the pipes designed to take water on pressure to both nearby and distant communities for sprinklers on farmlands for the planned irrigation. It was indeed a noble project.
The dam was constructed off river Ohina which links communities of Ohina, Aragye, Gongon Lemu, Ruwan Bake, Umaku in the present day Doma, Nasarawa and a couple of other local government areas of Nasarawa State. The dam runs 16 kilometres in length with over 35 million cubic metres of water. It provides a natural habitat for various sea life including fishes of many species.
When the military coup of December 31, 1983 terminated the life of the administration of Shagari, many ongoing projects were stalled. Doma dam was one of such projects as the regime of General Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon had no time to look the way of Doma before the coup that brought in the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida on August 27, 1985 ousted it.
Like the equipment, the large pipes that litter the farmlands of Doma, kilometers away from the dam, are the physical aspect of the pipedream to take pressured water from the dam to sprinkle crops even far off. The pipes are rusty from the three decades of rain and sun, with some of them half covered by the fertile soil of Doma. They lie in length, chocked by shrubs and the roots of trees that have grown over them in the last three decades. They have taken over the very farmlands that they would have been irrigating if the noble project was not abandoned in the pipeline.
Government nevertheless, brought another contractor, UTC, to site for rehabilitation. UTC provided the installation of the machinery needed at the engine house to pump water to farms: water pumps, panels and generators for power supply. Pipes were laid from the dam up to Rutu, some distance from Doma. In all, 20,000 hectares of land around Doma was projected for gravity irrigation, but the government saw to the laying of only 1,500 pipes, covering 1,600 hectares to make up for a part of the phase I.  UTC engineers test run the irrigation system, using the gravity system that was installed. But the main pumps were not used. Only the auxiliary pumps were used, records at the headquarters of LBRBDA show.
The administration went ahead to commission the phase I of the project in 1988. Between then and 1998, a couple of skeletal farming activities took place with crops like water melon and maize grown at small scale. Inquiries at the headquarters of the agency showed that a one-time military governor of Benue State, then Col. Idris Garba, cultivated 10 hectares of maize in Doma, using the skeletal irrigation system.
But the phase I of the project did not last the test of time, as the pipes began to burst because of high pressure from the gravity system, just as inadequate funding hampered the general function of the project.
It is the phase I of the project that then Col Garba and the white farmer tried to utilise on their farms, with huge loss. Now, no other investors have shown up there, decades after.
Only recently, young people in Doma decided they have remained quiet for too long while successive governments at both state and federal levels awarded white elephant projects around their neighbourhood.
“The authority concerned should identify viable investors that can effectively put the facilities into use to bring returns to the system. E.G Olam Nig. Ltd, Zimbabwe Farmers etc. The power generation initiative of the federal government should commence immediately. Government and indeed all stakeholders should put in place mechanism and regulations that will guide fishing activities in the dam, and if possible, fresh aquatic lives should be supplied to the dam and be regulated. Also, fishing activity should be structured/ regulated to be an annual event or festival,” the Doma group said in a statement.