[READ] We don’t have water, yet Lagos govt waters flowers

It’s been five years since Mr. Simeon Bolarinwa and his family moved to Pero in Agege Local Government Area of Lagos State. Since then, he and his family have had to solely rely on buying water for drinking and carrying out domestic chores.

  But Bolarinwa said he became confused lately after noticing that the state government constantly supplies water to the lawns and flowers adorning Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Ikeja, a short distance from his residence.

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He said, “We don’t have water in my area, so we buy water all the time. Ten kegs of (bore hole) water cost us N50 and four bowls cost about N20, and that’s because we live directly across a water seller. Those who have to buy water from the peddlers spend a lot more. The price also varies when there is power outage because the water seller will say he has to power his pumping machine with a generator and fuel costs money.

“During the rainy season, we pray it rains because we won’t have to buy water since rainwater is from God. We’re truly lucky to have someone selling water close to us. It’s just strange that people don’t have water to use, yet the same government is able to provide water for the grasses and flowers of Lagos.”

Lagos State is going greener with its landscaping programme at roundabouts, open spaces and loops, however; some residents of the state would die to get the water used daily to wet lawns, gardens and flowers.

“Government finds it difficult to provide water for human beings but easy to wet plants. If government can construct boreholes to supply water to plants, then it shouldn’t be difficult for the same government to construct boreholes in areas that do not have water, even if it will be one borehole per street,” Bolarinwa added.

Investigation shows that many residents of Lagos, particularly in Agege, Alimosho and Bariga local government areas and the outlying areas of the state, lack access to public water supply. Therefore, they rely mostly on borehole water being sold to them, which is usually not potable.

In the affected areas, some landlords take up the responsibility of providing boreholes for occupants of buildings inhabited by medium and high-income earners, However, some residents are not as lucky, particularly occupants of the more predominant Brazilian style buildings, popularly known as face-me-I-face-you. Such buildings hardly have wells and boreholes.

For instance, a junior secondary school student in Agege, Funmilayo Raji, wakes up early to fetch water for the family from the end of her street, to have a realistic chance of making it to school on time.

She said, “If I don’t go to fetch early, I may meet more people there, so I usually wake up by 5am on school days. It’s worse during dry season when the queues are long and we have to struggle to buy water. Some people ask truck pushers to bring the water for them but then, it will cost more.”

Another resident of Agege, Abiodun Okanlawon, said he had been buying water since he moved to the area three years ago. Okanlawon had been buying from water peddlers, so he had been spending more than Bolarinwa to get water.

 He said, “We buy kegs of water that we use for washing and we buy bags of sachet water or bottled water for drinking. I buy ten kegs for N150 and it hardly lasts me for four days if I have to wash clothes with it. I usually need another N80 for a bag of sachet water per week. Water is very essential; that’s why many people are going into the business of selling water.”

 But in contrast, lawns and parks in public areas in the state have continued to receive constant supply of water as part of government’s environmental beautification exercise. Such areas that have benefited from the landscaping and beautification projects include Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu Way, Alausa; Funsho Williams Park at Costain Roundabout, Iganmu; Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way; and Gani Fawenhimi Freedom Park and MKO Abiola Park, both at Ojota.

 Others include Kudirat Abiola Cenotaph near 7-Up, by old Lagos Toll Gate and the median from the old Toll Gate to Oworonshoki, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

 Interestingly, the state beautification projects have become the envy of many residents of Bariga too.

A resident of Odunsi Street in Bariga, Mrs. Lovelyn Johnson, estimated that 99 per cent of residents in the area lacked access to clean water, whether public or private.

Johnson said a few houses in the area used to have privately-dug wells, but that many of such wells had made way for road construction projects.

She said, “In my case, I spend up to N200 everyday to buy water. My family and I don’t mind, so we drink the water. I don’t bother to spend money on bottled or sachet water again.”

Also, Mrs. Falilat Adeyemi added that she and four family members had been using an average of N100 worth of water each day since her neighbour’s well gave way to a road renovation.

She said, “We’ve never had a well or government water supply but we used to fetch water from our neighbour who had a well. But the well was demolished during a road expansion project about a year ago. Now we buy water like everyone else.”

The business of selling water is one thing the residents of Agege and Bariga seem to have in common. With the water challenges confronting the two areas, some streets have up to four water sellers.

These business owners construct boreholes and achieve two objectives; selling water to their neighbours, thus making money and servicing a vital need.

Sunday Oshibajo, who manages the business for his family in Agege, however, said that profit had reduced because of the proliferation of the business in the area.

Oshibajo said profit varied from one time of the year to another and also from one season to season.

He said, “Before, we used to be the only one around selling water and there were so many people coming to buy water, but today, we are four on this street (Ajigbotinu)alone.

“We sell more on Saturdays and Sundays than on any other day of the week because more people are at home during the weekend to use water. Sometimes, we make about N1,000 profit daily and sometimes, it could be more. We’re like wholesalers; the people that make more money selling water are the peddlers.”

The water peddlers are often seen with their carts, which can lift up to ten kegs of water at a time. They buy 250 litres of water between N30 and N40, depending on the availability of electricity.

However, water peddlers sell the volume of water they buy for about N40 to customers for between N120 and N200, depending on the distance travelled within the neighbourhood to reach customers.

A water peddler, who identified himself as Sanni, said he could make up to N5,000 selling to customers from house to house within the neighbourhood, on a busy day.

He said, “When there is business, like during the dry season, I make up to N5,000 a day but when there is no business, my profit reduces to about N1,000.”

Meanwhile, the lawns and flowers in public parks in various parts of the state continue to enjoy constant water supply.

A lawn-tender at a park at Ijora Olopa, who identified himself as Emmanuel, said he uses 20,000 litres of water daily to wet a stretch of about 200 metres lawn.

He said, “I wet twice a day normally using four 5,000- litre tanks of water. But during rainy season, sometimes I don’t need to do any wetting since it usually rains.

Another lawn-tender at Ikeja, who did not give his name, said he had been wetting the park every morning, using sprinklers.

The source said, “It is difficult to quantify the volume of water used because we use sprinklers. Our water doesn’t come from the state water corporation. Each park has its borehole, so the state is not supplying the water from one source.”

The Group Managing Director, Lagos Water Corporation, Shayo Holloway, admitted that water supply in the state was inadequate but added that there were ongoing projects to ease the shortfall.

Holloway identified inadequate power supply and poor recovery of water rates from residents as some of the challenges affecting the corporation’s operations.

He said, “Water used by the Ministry of Environment to wet is not potable water. The ministry makes arrangement to source their water from boreholes and not from LWC. So, it’s not as if we are wasting potable water that could have been used to serve the public.

“Presently, we have a total of 2,400km of networks in Lagos State; that is the distance of Lagos to Kano and back. It may sound a lot in terms of the size of Lagos State but basically, that is still inadequate. For us to be able to cover the state adequately, we need about 6,600km. That is more than the distance of Lagos to London. The government is not unaware of this and a lot is presently being done to achieve that objective and that was why in 2010, Lagos State Water Corporation developed a Lagos water master plan.

“What it entails is growing capacity from the current 210million gallons per day to 745 million gallons per day by year 2020, when the population of Lagos is expected to hit 29 million.”

Holloway said the “ongoing construction of Adiyan water scheme phase 2 and the development of Yewa water scheme which will be sited in Badagry and cover the Lagos-Badagry corridor” would assist in alleviating some of the water challenges confronting residents.

He said, “We are finalising arrangements with the Federal Ministry of Works so that we can extend mains, water supply from the Adiyan source to Oworonshoki from the Bariga area. In the Bariga area, any street where there is no water supply should contact our toll number-08005246792837. We have also done extensive work in the Gbagada area, which is close to Bariga.

“We have network coverage in Agege which may not be adequate. However, work is still ongoing to extend mains and ensure that we are able to get water to virtually everybody. After the ongoing rehabilitation of iju and Adiyan schemes by December 2013, all the areas like Agege, Oshodi, where we recently completed mains extension and Bariga, will see good water delivery.

“We have got 48 mini water works all over the state to support these major water works. However, the major challenge these mini water works face is that of power supply from the national grid. In other words, on an average, they may get supply for about four hours or five hours and still be left with about 20 hours of operation.”

-Punch

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