Adamawa: NGO Predicts Sever Water Crisis
According to the Global Peace Development (GPD), Adamawa State is facing a severe water crisis which will have disastrous effects if urgent action is not taken. The GPD, which was founded in April of 2002, is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that was created to promote peace for Nigeria’s development.
Yesterday, during the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) summit in Yola, Mr. Ebruke Esike, the Executive Director of GPD, stated that the poor funding of the sector in Adamawa as well as the lack of underground water in some areas of the state have worsened the water crisis.
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However, he also mentioned out that the situation was not completely unfixable and pointed out that water could be transported from one town to another using pipes. He further added that the government should involve benefiting communities for effective management of the project, after completion.
Mr. Ebruke said that the GPD-organised summit was being sponsored by the Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) in order to promote social contract and social accountability in the water sector to ensure safe water in Adamawa.
According to him, Nigeria has only 9 percent of safe water for drinking, blaming a lack of performance improvement strategies or plans that could be used to strengthen the performance of the Adamawa water board towards improved service delivery.
Mr. Yohanna Audu, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representive, gave his remarks and said that the crisis posed as a grave danger to people’s health.
Mr. Audu stated that a community of 250 to 500 persons required a minimum of at least 3.3 million cubic metres of safe water in order to properly meet their water demands per day. Adding that any community that must trek 20 minutes for water has a severe water crisis, he also blames the multiplicity of humanitarian crises in the state.
