Nigeria’s water master plan

This delay was probably not due to lack of base material to build on. In 2000, a policy anchored on ‘’Public-Private Partnership’’ marked admission that water boards and corporations of the various states had become riddled with corruption, overstaffing, lack of maintenance of water pipes, storage and pumps it was almost impossible to resist pressures […]

This delay was probably not due to lack of base material to build on. In 2000, a policy anchored on ‘’Public-Private Partnership’’ marked admission that water boards and corporations of the various states had become riddled with corruption, overstaffing, lack of maintenance of water pipes, storage and pumps it was almost impossible to resist pressures by foreign companies with financial muscle provided by the World Bank to tap into water supply and distribution schemes for profit.  
In 2003, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration announced its Presidential Water for People, Water for Life’’ initiative with the promise to provide 100 percent access to water in all state capitals. Other urban areas would get 75 percent of their needs supplied; while rural areas would get 66 percent. Unfortunately, little, if any, has been achieved.
The new plan did not make a priority of new investment of capital by government in rural invention and manufacturing of technology to aid their initiatives.  By contrast, urban centres where political and business groups resided got a water-supply plant built as early as 1910 to process water from rivers. Local governments have remained the poorest level of state power with low capacity to plan and carry out investments, or to operate and maintain (water supply) systems.
The minister’s statement that ‘’an estimated 100 million people or 61 per cent of Nigeria’s population now have access to improved water sources’’ may be an overstatement. Patched investment of funds and intellectual assets by donor agencies like UNICEF supplementing counterpart funding by the Federal Government increased the functionality of boreholes in rural areas and small towns from 53 per cent to 98 per cent in some states like Kwara; and from 12 per cent to 88 per cent in others like Kebbi. Functionality is, however, no indicator of numbers of peoples with access to that water.
Mrs Ochekpe’s call for ‘’commercialisation of water supply services in order to increase revenue to maintain water infrastructure’’ appears to be another resort to increased taxes for social services. Rural water carriers rely on their feet, pots and grit as their basic ‘’water supply infrastructure’’. The feet have always been privately owned. Most draw raw brownish swamp water often shared with livestock. Many urban dwellers spend large proportions of their income in buying water. Private businessmen make money in huge markets like Kano. That they are not paying tax from their earnings is unlikely to improve from a policy which is late in recognising their hold on monetized urban markets.
The announcement that 1.2 billion dollars will be needed to meet UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015 holds up a promise of improved water supply and robust access. However, care must be taken to ensure that the funds will not become another victim of the sinkhole syndrome that afflicts many a public project, which allows officials to benefit from awarding money-guzzling contracts that in the end have no real benefits to the public.  
The minister would do well to revisit a 1993 federal government policy of promoting ‘’Water and Sanitation Committees’’ by local communities. The African Development Bank insisted on 30 per cent of members being women in such committees. Rural communities should be transformed into designing and control of expenditure priorities for the provision of water.  The success of such a programme will vastly increase access to clean and safe water to majority of Nigerians.