Waiting for water on the Banks of the Benue

Retrieved from: Pulitzer Center

“Inquiry reveals that Makurdi’s water woes are far from over, AMETO AKPE, supported by a grant from the Pulitzer center on crisis reporting writes that poor planning and governance continues to enable the crisis.

“The inhabitants of Makurdi, capital town of Benue State located in north-central Nigeria, have waited for almost three decades for access to safe drinking water. Teased by the unfulfilled promises of one administration after the other, they have watched billions in naira squandered on projects that either never see the light of day or being flawed and poorly planned bring no real relief or at best only short-lived respite. Though this scenario is replicated all over the country, Makurdi is peculiar, as the town sits on the banks of one of Nigeria’s largest rivers, the Benue, from which the state derives its name.

“Thus in Makurdi, a popular saying plays out, ‘for many live by the riverside but wash their hands with spittle!’ Dwellers face a dreary quality of life with serious threats to health and general wellbeing, brought about and heightened by water scarcity and the inability to access safe drinking water. Most households, a greater proportion of which are poor, rely on yard wells, water vendors and streams – whose offerings are usually a cocktail of disease carrying bacteria from which many have died. A visit to Wadata, a slum neighborhood on the waterfront, gives a glimpse into the daily struggle of many.

“Residents, bereft of alternatives, wash, bath and drink from the polluted river Benue; same place where some defecate and dump garbage. Several residents testify that pipe-borne water has never run in their district, and even in relatively well off neighborhoods water runs once a week for about an hour.”

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