As the world celebrates the 2025 world water day this Saturday, it is shocking and disheartening that in Nigeria, a country covered by water, most communities are still grappling with severe challenges to access portable water supply, especially in the rural areas.
In this report, EBS Nafeesah Bello, brings to the fore, the plight of residents of Ikpe waterside, a community in IKPOBA-OKHA local government area of Edo state.
In many rural communities across Nigeria, access to good and safe drinking water and for other domestic uses is a major challenge as they solely rely on natural or free sources of water supply like rivers, streams, wells and ponds, which harbour various bacteria that are harmful to human existence.
It is pathetic with the magnificent water project structures, mounted in some communities by some previous administrations which has never produced a drop of water, hence total dependence on water from unsafe sources remains their only hope.
It is more pathetic in this community as the residents lament an alleged ongoing dredging activities which has further polluted their major source of water supply.
Chairman of the community, victor Christopher and other inhabitants, while calling on the government for provision of portable source of water supply such as solar powered boreholes, due to unavailability of electricity in the locality, further corroborated the adverse effects of using water from the river and other similar sources.
Efforts to reach the chairman, IKPOBA-OKHA local government area, Obosa Jolly Ogbeide, on the alleged dredging activities in the waterside around Ikpe community was not successful as his secretary rudely told EBS news crew that it was not part of her duties to give out the phone number of her boss.
