World Water Day: FG queries absent directors, others
Okwe Obi, Abuja
As Nigeria joins the rest of world to celebrate World Water Day, the Federal Government has said over 43% of its citizens lack access to good water despite the accomplishment and the enormous opportunities present in the water sector in terms of abundant freshwater, favourable weather, substantial human capacity and numerous institutional arrangement.
The government also attributed open defecation to the cause of cholera, typhoid, dysentery, diarrhea, hepatitis B and other water born diseases which pollute the water.
Speaking at the celebration of the 2018 World Water Day, with the theme ‘Nature for Water,’ the federal government, through the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said the provision of water infrastructure is capital intensive, adding that concerted effort by stakeholders to overcome the challenges, is needed.
Adamu, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Ibrahim Musa, said “a worrying challenge is the declining percentage of Nigerians who are getting their water supply through piped networks, from 31 percent in 1990 to less than seven percent in 2017.
He further revealed that increase in population growth led to the decline at a rate of one percent a year when compared with the urbanisation rate.
“This shows that majority of the remaining 93 percent are drawing water from other sources that cannot guarantee freshness, evident in the indiscriminate digging of borehole with resultant consequences on the environment in the urban areas and fetching of unclean water from rivers and streams in the rural areas.”
On the way forward, he said the ministry “is committed to its mandate of formulating and implementing policies, projects and programmes that will enable sustainable access to safe and sufficient water to meet the social, cultural and economic developmental needs of all Nigerians, for all uses, in ways that contribute to enhancing public health, food security, eradicating poverty while maintaining the integrity of freshwater ecosystem of the nation.”
In conclusion, he said: “The National Water Resources Master Plan (NWRMP) which gives high priority to the implementation of a series of large, medium and small dam projects in Nigeria has been finalised and, presently, there are over 200 dams in Nigeria. “
Meanwhile, the federal government has wielded the big stick by issuing query to directors and stakeholders in the ministry of water resources who were absent at this year’s World Water Day.
Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr Musa, who disclosed this, said “their absence depicts lawlessness and insubordination, which must not be treated with kids gloves.”
“We can not continue to allow this kind of insubordination to continue. I must make that the erring directors get punished, “ he said.