Kwali villages search for potable water

Residents of Chida in Wako ward of Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are groaning over the difficulty they face in the search for potable water. Aso Chronicle’s visit to the community over the weekend showed that the people, who are Gbagyi by tribe and are mostly peasant farmers, don’t have pipe-borne […]

Residents of Chida in Wako ward of Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are groaning over the difficulty they face in the search for potable water.

Aso Chronicle’s visit to the community over the weekend showed that the people, who are Gbagyi by tribe and are mostly peasant farmers, don’t have pipe-borne water.

Mrs. Rebecca Daniel, who has a year-old baby strapped to her back was seen scooping water with a calabash from a pond.

She told our reporter that water from the pond was the only source in the village and that they drank it and used it for their cooking.

Mr. Ayuba Shegiaza, spokesperson of the community, told our reporter that lack of potable water has been one of their major problems. 

“In fact, the only source of water here in this village is the pond you saw some women fetching from. Whenever  it rains, water gathers there and they now use calabash to fetch it,” he said.

He noted many politicians have come to the community with promises to sinking boreholes for them but that none of them has been able to fulfill the promise.

“Just imagine the kind of water we are drinking in this village, despite the fact that we vote at every election, yet the government has refused to assist in providing us with a borehole,” he said.

Shegiaza,  also lamented the abandoned electrification project, saying it was awarded over eight years ago by the administration of then chairman of the council, Danlami Yebu.

He said after the contractor had installed concrete poles from neighbouring Bukpe village to the community, the work stopped and they have continued to live in darkness.

He therefore appealed to the authorities of the council, under the leadership of Mr. Joseph K. Shazin, to provide the community with a borehole and complete the electrification project.

Similarly, residents of Dapa community which is some few kilometres away from Chida, have also expressed concern over the problem of water at the community.

Spokesman of the community, Samson David, said the residents face the problem of water scarcity and that they depend solely on rain water.

He said their women sometimes climbed up and down big hill with dangerous rocks to dig out sand and fetch water.

He said the perennial water problem facing residents has become a nightmare for them, adding that women sometimes stayed part of the night at the stream, especially during the dry season, and waited for several hours before they fetched water.

“In fact, how I wish you were in this village in December, January or February to see how women suffer to get water. They sometimes even have to sleep at the stream with their torchlights waiting for water to gather before they fetch,” he said.

He said there was a time a contractor sank a borehole near the primary school in the village, but that the project stopped half way, adding that the contractor could not reach the water level.

He also complained about the deplorable state of the road from Bukpe to the community, saying farmers suffer whenever they want to transport their produce to either Kwali or Abaji markets.

“Just last week when my brother wanted to carry some tubers of yam and bags of maize to Kwali market, the driver he engaged charged him exorbitant fares because of the bad state of the road, “ he said.

He said most of the inhabitants of the community were peasant farmers, but that lack of good access road and water have been their major problem. He appealed to the council chairman to come to the aid of the community.

When contacted, the chairman of the council, Mr. Joseph K. Shazin, said the villages were on top of a rock saying several efforts have been made to drill boreholes at the two communities but had failed due to the rocky nature of the area.

He said it was only multinationals and specialists that could drill borehole at such communities, even as he said they had some years back tried to connect water from the spring, which he said wasn’t possible due to its cost and viability.

“But the last option which was in the budget during my first tenure in office was to procure a tanker that will take water from neighbouring Bukpe village and distribute it to the two villages of Chida and Dapa,” he explained.

He added that “But unfortunately, the villagers of Dapa said they preferred electricity project. And that is where we stopped and then I could not get re-elected in 2013 until now,” he said.

The chairman said the abandoned electrification project was awarded by a former administration of the council before he assumed office in 2010, adding that “since the electrification project is an ongoing project, the council will either look for the contractor to mobilise him back or we will revoke the project and re-arward it to another contractor who will continue with it,”  the chairman said.