32 million Nigerians have access to potable water sources – Minister

Folalumi Alaran

The minister of water resources Engr Suleiman Adamu has said not less than 32 million Nigerians have access to potable drinking water from the numerous water facilities that the ministry has created over the past seven years.

The minister made this statement at a media discussion with water correspondents on Monday at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.

He claimed that in the last seven years, his office has completed over 6,700 water schemes around the nation and has been able to deliver water at the federal level on its own through the federal ministry of water resources and its agencies.

He said, “ The water facilities that we have built have the capacity to supply more than 32 million people with water.

“ Supporting states and rural communities with water supply in the past 7 years, we have constructed more than 6,700 water schemes across the country and we have been able to provide water supply at Federal level alone between the federal ministry of water resources and its agencies.”

In addition to ruling out a number of projects that have already been completed, the minister discussed the current state of flooding and open defecation (OD) in the nation.

He stated that the federal government will continue to work with development partners to secure sufficient funding for the implementation of large-scale projects to end OD in Nigeria, adding that the only way to address flooding is by constructing more drainage systems.

He said, “ There is no measures to stop flood but it can be mitigated as building dams as one of the major ways to check flood.

“ A lot of progress has been made in respect to flooding. We will try to sort things out with the ministry of finance and start a study on our rivers and come up with a master plan to allow us to have better navigation of the river Niger and Benue.”

However, the minister praised the media for its recent support of the ministry of water resources and urged them to continue doing so while providing proper coverage of the clean Nigeria campaign to stop open defecation in Nigeria.

According to him, the campaign offers Nigerians a variety of advantages and has the potential to enhance their welfare, security, and community as a whole.

He however said that the ministry of water resources will begin its project commissioning after the festive period.

He said, “ In the meantime, it is going to be commissioning galore, and we have already started with the Patigi Water Supply Project. After Christmas I will be commissioning the Ahmadu Bello University Water Supply Project Phase 2.

“We hope also early in January 2023 to flag off Gombe Regional Water Supply project, also to commission a concession on a power plant in Dadinkowa which is 40 megawatts, and already injecting power into the National Power Grid, commissioning of Kashimbila Dam Power Project along with the Ministry of Power, and now we are also injecting power into the National Grid.

“We also have the Nasarawa Emergency Power Project, among others. We have irrigation projects including the Hadeja Irrigation project of 6,000 hectares along with Kano River Irrigation project, we have rehabilitated it and we are likely to have 14, 900 hectares of irrigation back on stream, we rehabilitated the major canal, this is the first irrigation work we have done in 50 years.

“We are going to commission the Gari Irrigation project which is 100 percent completed which was abandoned over 17 years. We resuscitated it and we have over 3000 hectares rehabilitated.

“We have the Adada Dam which is completed and working on the treatment plant. We also have the Imo irrigation project ready for commissioning, and that of Enugu State ready for commissioning in the first quarter of 2023”, he said.