ACCCESS TO PORTABLE WATER DILEMMA

As the world battle global hunger, the President of International Commission on Large Dams Dr. Jia Jinscheng said that 1.1billion people globally lack access to portable water. This has further accentuated the widening gap between the rich and the poor globally, electoral promises and democratic dividend delivery.

Further statistics reveal that annual water demand is increasing by volume of 64billion; 2.6billion people do not have adequate sanitation and over two billion people lack electricity. This sad reality has been attributed to the menace to population growth and the increasing urbanization needs for water.

It is said that the federal government had concluded plans to develop 19 of the 20 dams for hydropower generation. We are terribly worried about the plight of a people who have perennially seen or experienced government’s neglect and execution paralysis.

We understand that one of our completed dam projects awaiting power evacuation is the Gurara dam project and that the Federal Government is improving on existing infrastructure especially dams and irrigation projects while a number of new dams and reservoirs are to be constructed.

We think that the transformation agenda of the Federal government still stroll in the world of rosy speeches and beautiful slide presentations. That time has come for us to work for the population of electorates who daily feel the harsh realities of the sad statistics that are churned out locally and globally.

The alternative is that we might continue in the business as usual fashion while we watch our critical human resource decline and struggle without any better living standard. We charge the government to begin implementation of the 2002 a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) which was signed between Nigeria and China on various aspects of water resource engineering, integrated agriculture construction and manpower development.

Time it is for us to find partners globally to address this blossoming challenge. Also, we need to know that wastewater has value and should not be wasted! It has to be treated and reused. It is a sustainable source of water, nutrients and energy. Now we can begin to give life to the MoUs so we can have that sustainable, adapted and affordable solutions to portable water inaccessibility.