AbdulRazaq breaks jinx of water crisis in Kwara, 55 years after
By Mosunmola Ayobami, Ilorin
Water is life because no human being and even non-human being could survive without it. It’s so critical to every minute of human existence and has no alternative.
Since Kwara State was created on 27th May 1967, efforts by every successive administration to provide portable water for the people came to naught
Investigations revealed that the situation persisted because, just like few other critical sectors in government, water sector has remained one of the major conduit pipes through which government officials and politicians easily fleece public money.
When Governor AbulRahman AbdulRazaq assumed office, expectedly the sector was in a mess.
On a visit to the ministry of water resources, he gave a marching order for constant water supply to some areas in Ilorin and all other parts of the state within 100 days.
AbdulRazaq also asked the ministry and the concerned consultants to deliver water to every part of the state by getting all the dams working, pledging to give them the necessary support.
The governor, who also visited Agba Dam and Asa Dam Water Works as well as Western Reservoir (Adewole) in Ilorin, expressed worry over the fruitless search for water by residents of the state, despite the huge government investment in the sector.
The governor said he might wield the big stick in form of ‘house cleaning’ if the ministry did not deliver on his directive.
“We have a mandate to deliver water to our people and within the next 100 days. For a start, I want to see constant water supply in specific areas of Ilorin. It may be Ilorin East, South or West or anything (where these particular dams cover),” he said after listening to the ministry’s officials.
“Don’t keep talking. We want action. Our people want water. No part of Ilorin or anywhere in this state do people have water. Raise a memo to state what the problems are and what’s needed to fix them. People are tired of empty talk.
“We have to solve the problems now. Forget the big word reticulation, let’s fix the problem. We need immediate memo on what the problems are and we will give you all the support.
“We need to think out of the box. I’m serious about having water in our homes within 100 days. We have the mandate to deliver water to our people,” the governor added.
Few days after the governor’s marching order, some residents of Ilorin heaved a sigh of relief as their dry tap started flowing with portable water.
Commissioner for Water Resources, Abdulwahab Femi Agbaje in an interview with journalists in Ilorin recently disclosed that the state is beginning to put the issue of scarcity of water behind it.
He recalled with nostalgia the state of water supply when the present administration took over.
He said: “When we came on board, we met a situation that was not palatable; we met a comatose situation of water works in the state. The first thing we noticed was that apart from the electrical operation of our water works, the staff at the Water Corporation were on strike. And this is the body that is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that there is water in the whole of the state.
“So we met this body on strike. They had a lot of complains against the previous government and they down tooled for almost three months before we came on board and the moment we came on board, the government ably led by Mallam Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq intervened.
“He had meeting with the management team of the Corporation and looked into some of the things they raised and he positively yielded to some of their demands and they went back to work.
“After then, we discovered that virtually all the water works were having problems and since then the government took it upon itself to see that most of these water works get back to functioning.”
He also disclosed that the government has rehabilitated 14 water works in Igbaja, Agbamu, Oro Agọ, Rore, Offa, Oyun and other areas, stressing that, that of Oke Onigbin is in progress.
“Not only that, we initiated and built two water works. We have one at Dumaji, we have one at Jebba. That of Dumaji is functioning now. It is complete and the people of the community are enjoying it now. That of Jebba is about 80 percent completion. In fact, hopefully, it is going to be delivered to us this month as promised by the contractor.
“And not only that, we extended public water coverage to many places which do no not enjoy water before the coming on board of this administration.
“As I speak to you, we just got an approval from His Excellency to carry out rehabilitation on about nine water works. We are also starting another set of 65 boreholes across the state to take care of our communities that our water dams could not serve,” he added.
The commissioner further spoke about the interventions from PEWASH to complement the efforts of the government.
He said: “It is partnership on Expanded Water Sanitation and Hygiene. This is an arrangement between state government and the Federal Government. The state government will bring a counterpart fund; the federal government will add the same. We have done that last year where we picked four local governments to do the pilot scheme and we selected Asa Moro, Offa and Edu local governments.
“And under this arrangement, the state dug 24 boreholes in each of the local governments. This year, we have commenced a project of getting another six local governments too to enjoy this benefit. So these are what we are doing in term of PEWASH arrangement.
“There’s water in Ilorin now and there’s water in so many other local governments. The feedback is very good; that is, the people that are feeling this services, they are getting back to us to commend the government.”
In terms of challenges, the commissioner said: “In some areas, we have power problems and in these areas, no matter how the situation of the water work is, if there’s no power, there’s virtually nothing you can do. And it may not be easy for the government to be providing diesel.
“If government want to provide diesel for every community, you can imagine what that will amount to. Definitely in those areas, particularly the northern parts of Kwara where we have serious challenge in term of power supply, these services have not been that felt because of this problem.
“And apart from that, during raining season, we have a lot of challenges. There was a flood and some of our equipment were swept away. The electricity poles were carried completely and some of the pipelines were swept away. And it became a problem for us to access the place because of the level of water at that particular time.
“So when you look at that period, the citizens will make noise that they are not enjoying water even though they will not know what has actually happened. They will just think maybe the water works is not actually functioning and maybe the ministry is not doing anything but No. It is because of those challenges.
“We have similar experience in Igbaja too. The Igbaja water works is working well, there is no problem but when the place was over flooded, it affected our equipment. These are some of the challenges. And apart from that, when you look at Asa Dam, it is the major dam that we have in Kwara state. And it supplies a very large percentage of the people in this state.
“When you now look at the activities of fish farmers in that axis, when you have over 10,000 people fishing around the dam and they are releasing their chemical wastes directly into our water, this has a serious negative effect on most of our equipment. When we look at our machines, nozzles, and it hampers our services. So these are some of the challenges we have.”
He also said that the present administration has extended new pipes to some areas that had never enjoyed public water, including Egbejila, Batasunkere, Royal, Mandate 3, and few other places in Ilorin.
