Nasarawa: Drinking From ‘Sewer Streams’ To Survive

“We will use it to wash plates, and bath a new born baby – my grandchild. It is a boy”, the young grandmother said with emphasis on the sex of the child – smiles all over her face. A young man in his late 20s was the next on the long queue. He also waited […]

“We will use it to wash plates, and bath a new born baby – my grandchild. It is a boy”, the young grandmother said with emphasis on the sex of the child – smiles all over her face.

A young man in his late 20s was the next on the long queue. He also waited for the dripping water. He scooped a bowl full of the scarce commodity. He whistled, singing a native tune as he waited. It took him more than 15 minutes to get a 20 liters’ paint bucket full.

“At wet season, you will not wait this long, but this is dry season. Water has dried up. You have to rush your family out of bed, in the early hours, and bring them here to keep vigil, waiting for your turn to scoop. That way, you are sure of beating water sellers at their game – they charge too high”, Kobi Joshua, the young man, told this reporter, as he tried to get a second bucket.

Up next on the long queue was a nursing mother. She scooped, and made way for another anxious, but patient man. It was orderly because over the years, dependants on this source of water initiated, and spelt out rules, which must be obeyed. On and on, they took their turn, and fetched as they shared jokes, experiences, and even gossips. Residents throng the place, and left as they fetched, but the queue remained long, as more people joined, or others went and returned for more water.

The place is called Rafin Kongo, a small stream along Emir’s Palace Road which has become a rendezvous of some sort for Angwar Kongo section of Keffi metropolis in Nasarawa State.

A box culvert is provided there, to channel water collected from other sections of the metropolis, out of the town. The road passes on top, and beneath it – just by the mouth of the culvert, is what residents of this section of Keffi rely on, for their domestic water needs. Beside the culvert, lies a large dumpsite for refuse – as urban authorities continued to look the other way, while the need for a coordinated refuse disposal project, grow steadily.

Men of the Nasarawa State Urban Development Board (NUDB), are spotted around this place, occasionally. But they do not clear the ever present heap of refuse there; they resort to the desperate measure of setting it on fire which burns only the surface, sending fowl odour into the air.

The higher the dumpsite grows, the riskier for residents who rely on Rafin Kongo for water: refuse drop down from the precipice of the culvert, and land either in the drainage way, or directly in the hole where water gathers for collection. When the culvert drains water from other parts of the metropolis, it is even riskier for dependants of Rafin Kongo. Most times, used water from other sections of the metropolis is collected into the stream which traverses most part of the town. At times, the culvert witnessed large water flow, which passes through it, and cascades down the other side, further contaminating Angwar Kongo’s cherish water source.

At wet season, water gathers there naturally, but during the dry season, residents have to device means including digging up holes, deep enough to extract the commodity.

“The hole does not have to be far from the mouth of the culvert – that is where the water bed lies. We collect the water as it trickles in”, Joshua, the dependant on Rafin Kongo explained to this reporter. Women dug the hole, sometimes around September, 2011, but Joshua was there to assist, using local expertise.

All over the metropolis, streams like this one across Emir’s Palace Road, can be spotted. There is Rafin Dutse passing through Bakin Masallacin Idi and Tudun Wada sections of the metropolis. There is also Rafin Antau across Stadium Road, and Rafin Rama running through Angwan Rama and various other parts of the town. They have become major sources of water to majority of residents of Keffi, who rely on them and even keep vigil to scoop for their domestic water needs. These streams were once clean, and never dried up, but population explosion, and the growing demand for land, have encroached on them. There are construction activities in the way of these streams, just as the absence of a coordinated dumpsite for the steady generation of refuse, have compelled residents find them (streams) as veritable refuse beds. These factors have contributed in drying up these streams, and further contaminating them.

“But for us poor people, we have no option other than to rely on these streams”, said an elderly man who spoke to Sunday Trust, as he bath from Rafin Dutse in Tudun Wada area of Keffi. He placed his bent body carefully on the rocks that shoot from the stream, and used a plastic container to scoop, and pour on his head, as he talked.

He made references to individual boreholes sunk around Keffi, but said in Hausa that “they belong to the wealthy among us; they and their boreholes are beyond our reach. When they channel a tap outside of their security fences, it is to sell to Mai Ruwa (water sellers), who then sell to us at costs high enough to shave our heads. Here at the streams, nobody charges us a dime. God owns these ones, not man, so his people rely on them.”

The situation in Keffi repeats itself in all major towns of the state, including Lafia, the state capital, as well as Akwanga, Nasarawa, Doma, Keana, Nasarawa-Eggon and Wamba.

In Lafia, only few streams run across the town. But they are a major source of water for many. Rafin Amba which runs through Tudun Amba and other sections of the metropolis plays a significant role in the lives of families residing even far off from it. “The water is not clean. It is dirty. But we use it. What option do we have, anyway”, said Tabitha Dennis, a mother of three who spoke to Sunday Trust while she washed clothes alongside commercial motorcycles operators who also washed their machines in the same stream.

In Doma, Saint John Bosco Street bursts with human activities from a surging population especially of the women folk, and children waking up as early as four in the morning to begin the day. They are facing the same plight as residents of inter-linking streets including Alwaza Bye-pass and Makaranta Street, as well as Andoma of Doma palace area of the metropolis of Doma, headquarters of Doma local government area. They need water. Experience has shown, however that for many years now, they must have to keep night watch, trek distances, and wait before they can be able to scoop the scarce commodity at untreated sources lying at the outskirt of the metropolis.

One of such open and contaminated water sources lies between the metropolis and Doma Dam along the untidy Doma Dam Road. This stream has witnessed increased human activities from women and their children, commercial motorcycle operators and sundry artisans; all needing this unclean water for both domestic and commercial needs.

At the Doma Dam, some few kilometres from the metropolis, lies the massive water works called Doma Water Supply Scheme, an inheritance from the old water works of the old Plateau State. The commissioning stone at the entrance to the massive facility still looks beautiful even in its old age, with inscriptions which show that it was constructed by SCC Nigeria Limited,  in the days of former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, and completed with commissioning by his successor, the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha on September 21, 1995. The people of communities around there recalled that those days; government was not too far from the people, and was felt by them.

A walk into the facility will reveal some ironies. Women and children at the staffs’ quarters of the facility are daily going down the large dam to fetch with jerry cans and basins. To survive, they must drink from the dam, as the fish in this large water body, or some herd of cattle there, do. The proximity of the dam to them has spared them the hardship of trekking long distances during the dawn hours, in search of unclean water, as most of the exploding population in the metropolis. They simply walk through the opening made from the rear fence of the water treatment facility, and link the dam from where they fetch.

Residents of Angwar Malam, Angwar Dutshe, Angwar Maireke, Millionaire’s Quarters, Oversea and Tammar in Nasarawa, headquarters of Nasarawa Local Government Area, are also keeping the same vigil, just to fetch from streams near them, lest they are compelled to trek even longer distances to Fatu Maimasha, Kogi Kwoto, Kogi Ago and Kogi Mata to fetch from river Uke where inhabitants of the surrounding settlements, and their livestock have been drinking since they settled their decades upon decades ago.

Like the people of Doma, residents of Nasarawa town had a water treatment plant and a dam constructed by the first old Plateau State first civilian administration of Solomon Lar. In 1991, the military administration there awarded a contract for minor repairs, to Gleeson, a water engineering firm, which restored and strengthened water supply to the growing population of residents of Nasarawa and environs. These have been the last the people witnessed of government’s concern for them in the area of water supply inspite of the explosion in the population of residents with an attendant growth in thirst for water.

For now, the water treatment plant is there as one of the physical reminders of the old days when things worked, residents of the metropolis have severally complained. Workers at the facility have been maintained in their duty posts, by the new state – Nasarawa, although they themselves are rushing down to the dam to fetch untreated water for domestic needs because the facility has remained grounded for a period running close to a decade now.

At the metropolis of Akwanga, residents and inhabitants of the communities around it, are facing same tougher times. They are relying on streams and other open sources for water, except for the privileged few relying on individual boreholes.

Keana metropolis, headquarters of Keana Local Government Area suffers the same fate. Amiri, Obene, Iwagu, Oki sections are exploding with populations which increase is steady. Residents are seen trekking distances, linking Keana-Adudu and Keana-Awe roads as well as other major links in search of water. They have been going extra kilometers to Aloshi where a water treatment plant which was constructed by Solomon Lar, to fetch from open sources. Keana soil has large concentrate of salt, making wells and boreholes useless there, even for the privileged few. So everyone goes into the distance in a journey that is almost migratory, in search of water from other communities.

Solomon Lar constructed a water treatment plant at Aloshi to take treated water from there to serve Keana metropolis. The military regimes maintained that facility, and supply was steady, until 1999 when Abdullahi Adamu took over after his election as the new governor. He funded maintenance projects there to continue with the chain of supply, but the supply broke down, few months after he left office.

Residents of Wamba have been promised potable water supply by successive regimes, beginning from the Benue/Plateau era, but they have only their streams for many to rely on.

In all these towns – apart from Keffi – billions of naira was sunk into projects to give the people water, between 2008 and 2011. The administration of Aliyu Akwe Doma, who governed between 2007 and 2011, sunk, for Nasarawa alone, N2.4 billion, for water works which project ended up only in fenced project site, according to records obtained from the General Manager of the state water board, Engr. Ibrahim Safiyanu.

He gave more records, showing that Keana gulped N150 million, Doma N350 million, Lafia N1.6 billion, Nasarawa-Eggon N190 million, and Akwanga N75 million. For Wamba, N13 million was handed to a consultant to carry out a feasibility study alone. These projects were reviewed more than once, respectively, as they appeared in budgetary proposals with approvals from the Nasarawa State House of Assembly (NSHA). But none, apart from the one in Lafia, was executed.

The Lafia project was billed for commissioning during a proposed visit of President Goodluck Jonathan in December, 2011. But on December 2, an aspect of the partly completed project – a 3 million capacity over-head tank constructed at N538 million, collapsed during a test run. Engineers and government supervisors who stood at the roots of the main tank noticed the disaster coming, and took to their heels, living government and construction vehicles behind them. The stands collapsed, and the overhead tank crashed down, ramming construction equipments and government vehicles, as it sent surging water into adjoining offices, and down the adjoining Shendam Road.

The General Manager said efforts by the current government of Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to restore water supply in all these areas, is steady, with positive feedback. But he acknowledged that for many residents, such efforts have little impact, blaming the development on years of decay and lack of improvement on those facilities to cater for a surging population.

“We pump water every two days in Keffi, Lafia, Akwanga, Nasarawa towns. But what we have on hand now are facilities constructed to cater for not the type of population as we have now. The governor is going to do something about that. Making these facilities function after some years, is just the phase one of the work”, Engineer Safiyanu said.