Special Report: Despite multi-million naira projects, water scarcity persists in Kwara communities
By Ghazali Ibrahim
In Kwara, the promise of potable water remains unfulfilled for many communities despite significant investments in water projects. The community of Jooro, a suburb of Egbejila Village in Ilorin West Local Government, is one such area where hopes for water supply have faded into despair.
Aisha Adebayo, a middle-aged woman, stands in line at the community well, gazing at the overcast sky with parched eyes. It’s supposed to be the wet season, a time when rain replenishes the earth and fills the wells. Yet, the clouds refuse to release a single drop, leaving the land dry and the people desperate.
“I thought the rain was going to fall so that I could have drinking water in my house,” Aisha lamented. The well water, she explained, is often impure and requiring traditional purification methods before it can be used.
“Sometimes, we save water from rainfall, and if there is no rain, we queue at the community borehole dug by a Saudi Arabian government intervention project,” she added.
The Saudi Arabian-funded borehole has been a lifeline for the community, but it’s not without its issues.
“There was a time when the pumping machine broke down,” Aisha recalled, “and the entire community suffered because the nearest alternative water source was three miles away.”
The economic toll on women
The water crisis in Kwara rural communities, particularly in Jooro, not only affects households but also has a significant impact on local businesses, especially those run by women. A woman in her mid-fifties, Iya Oniresi, a local rice seller, described how the lack of water has crippled her small business.
“If I want to cook the rice before getting it ready for sale, I need water,” she said. “But the scarcity of water in this community is affecting me and my business.”
For years, she and her children have been making daily trips to the community borehole, a task that consumes valuable time that could otherwise be spent on income-generating activities.
A wealthy resident of the community once dug a private borehole with public taps, but access to this water is at the owner’s discretion. “We are suffering,” Iya Oniresi said with a weary laugh, “maybe the government has forgotten about us.”
Amina Suleiman, who has been making and selling soap for over a decade, finds her business at a standstill whenever the water supply is disrupted, particularly during the course of making new soap.
“Water is the most important ingredient in soap making,” she explained. “Without it, I can’t produce the quantity I need to meet the demand. Sometimes, I have to cut down on production because there’s just not enough water to go around.”
Amina described the frustration of having to compete with other women at the community well. “By the time I get enough water, it’s almost too late in the day to start making soap. It affects my ability to earn a steady income,” she said, her voice tinged with worry.
“The lack of water is making it harder for me to support my family.”
She, however, pleaded with the government, noting how swift intervention to their problems will help improve their livelihoods.
Amid these severe complaints, several physical structures of borehole water construction and overhead tanks are situated at different places in the community.
Fatimah Yusuf, engaged in petty trading, lives near one of the overhead tanks, which is devoid of any installed equipment.
Fatimah Yusuf, a vegetable vendor in the local market, relied heavily on water to keep her produce fresh. “Freshness is everything in my business,” she said. “But without enough water, the vegetables wilt quickly, and I lose customers. Sometimes, I can’t even wash the dirt off them before selling, which affects my sales.”
She recounted how she has to wake up at dawn to fetch water before heading to the market. “It’s exhausting,” Fatimah admitted. “I have to carry heavy buckets of water just to keep my vegetables looking fresh. It’s hard work, and I wish we had better access to water.”
A misallocation of resources
While communities like Jooro suffer, millions have been spent on water projects in other areas of Kwara State. In 2023, the federal government commissioned a solar-powered borehole in Temidire, Gaa-Akanbi, a community already well-served by existing water sources. The project, supervised by the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority and executed by Best Performance Golden Limited, cost nearly 18 million naira.
However, a visit to the site revealed that the borehole is operational but unnecessary. Meanwhile, just two kilometres away, other communities continue to struggle for every drop of water. This misallocation of resources raises serious questions about the planning and execution of water projects in the state.
In the community, for someone like Mulikat, her thoughts drifted to her children, their faces smudged with dirt, their laughter silenced by thirst. She wondered: ‘How much longer can we survive on just a trickle?’
“This issue of water has become an everyday sickness for me because water is needed for daily activities like washing, cooking, and bathing. If this poses challenges to us in the rural communities, how do we expect to cope with our daily lives?” she lamented bitterly as she tried to carry the little water she was able to fetch in her container.
Project completed but not accessible
When The Informant247 visited one of the project locations at Ajegunle, it was discovered that although the project was completed, it was situated in a hidden place not easily accessible to the general public, failing to ease the suffering as narrated by residents of the community.
Adisa Philip, the custodian of the newly constructed borehole, explained the suffering they faced before the construction of the borehole. “From Avenue 1-5, we all relied on a well situated down the valley of the road,” he narrated. “Though we are happy with the execution of this borehole project, residents of the immediate community suffered the most and sometimes had to plead before they could get the little water they had.”
Speaking from experience, he added, “I have been in this community for a number of years, and water scarcity has been our major outcry to the government. We hereby call on the government to intervene in our ordeal as residents of this community have been battling with water scarcity for years.”
N17.9 Million spent on projects
Responding to a Freedom of Information request sent to the Lower Niger River Basin Authority, the agency in charge of the project, they gave the contract sum for each project as N8,965,420.00, bringing the total to N17,930,840.00.
Further details revealed that on 14th July 2023, a total sum of N17,034,298.00 was paid to the contractor, Best Performance Golden Limited, for certified works.
It added that on 2nd November 2023, a total sum of N896,542.00 was paid to the contractor for retention after the defect liability period.
In an attempt to ascertain the cause of the change in the location of projects where the most deserving communities are losing opportunities to others with abundant water, Muftau Ibrahim, the Director of Best Performance Golden Limited, explained, “The topological condition of the area is the first hindrance to the execution of the project.”
He added, “We had to walk miles. In fact, part of a fence had to be demolished because water is situated in the area. So, I, together with my crew, had to drill the borehole at the prescribed place directed by the geologists.”
“As regards the first borehole drilled, we acted according to the community representative’s directions because our job is to execute the project. Fortunately for us, the result came out fine as examined by the geologists, and we executed the project,” he explained.
Systemic failures, government neglect
The situation in Kwara is symptomatic of a broader problem in Nigeria: the systemic failure to provide adequate water infrastructure. Despite substantial funding, many communities lack basic access to clean water, forcing them to rely on unsafe sources. In rural areas, water supply systems are often poorly maintained or entirely non-functional.
Alhaja Ahmed Adebayo, a community leader in Jooro, recounts how government officials visited with promises of a borehole project. “They came, collected data, and then disappeared without a trace,” he says. “They came with empty promises and left us with dashed hopes.”
Even when projects are completed, they are often left without proper maintenance. The Saudi Arabian-funded borehole in Jooro, for example, is frequently out of service due to a lack of funds for fuel or repairs.
“We are facing serious issues of water scarcity, and nobody is coming to our aid,” Adebayo lamented.
According to UNICEF, only about 70% of Nigerians have access to clean water sources, and in rural areas, this figure drops significantly. In Northern Nigeria, where Kwara is located, only about 30% of the population has access to safe drinking water.
Despite substantial allocations in the national budget for water projects, a significant percentage of these funds are either misallocated or underutilised.
For instance, a 2022 report from Nigeria’s Ministry of Water Resources indicated that approximately 40% of water projects in the country were either abandoned or not functioning due to poor execution and lack of maintenance.
Boreholes are often cited as a quick fix to water scarcity. However, of the 70,000 boreholes drilled across Nigeria in the last decade, it is estimated that up to 40% are non-functional due to poor maintenance, corruption, and lack of community engagement.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that while urban areas have seen improvements in water access due to better infrastructure and government focus, rural areas have been largely neglected. In Kwara, urban areas like Ilorin have significantly better access to water compared to rural communities like Jooro, where residents rely on outdated or privately funded boreholes.
Lawmaker keeps mum
Several calls were made to Senator Oloriegbe, who facilitated the project, but he neither answered nor returned any calls.
Text messages and emails were also sent to him. As of the time of filing this story, he has yet to respond.
Broader implications of water scarcity
Water-related diseases remain the leading cause of illness and death in Nigeria, disproportionately affecting the poor. Without access to clean water, communities are vulnerable to a range of health issues, from cholera to typhoid. In Jooro and similar communities, reliance on untreated water sources exacerbates these risks.
Environmental expert Mr Emmanuel Kilaso, an environmentalist at Secure Cycle, points to climate change as another factor worsening the water crisis. “Some areas face heavy rains causing floods, while others suffer from droughts due to decreased rainfall,” he explained. The lack of infrastructure to capture and store rainwater further compounds the problem.
This story was produced with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development Inclusivity and Accountability Project (CMEDIA), funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
