The federal government on Monday announced that urban cities and municipal centres in the country have no business installing boreholes for water supply.
The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, stated this in Abuja at the seventh edition of the Ministerial briefing highlighting the administration’s key achievements in the sector.
The Minister spoke about the implications of household boreholes sunk due to lack of public source of potable water supply.
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He said the states must do more investments in water supply, especially as the population is growing.
He said that places like Lagos, Abuja, and others should not depend on boreholes for water supply.
However, it was necessary to have boreholes in rural communities where there is no surface water source.
The Minister explained that though the federal government was not interested in being the organ providing permit for sinking boreholes, it wanted to ensure that it falls under the national safety code and guidelines.
Adamu said:
“In every country in the world, Nigeria is the only country where there are no regulations or standards for boreholes. And we want to do that.
“We are not saying you cannot build a borehole in your house. Nobody is going to stop you from having borehole in your house. But we don’t need the boreholes. But what we are going to do is to make sure the municipal waterworks. We cannot do away with boreholes entirely.
“In rural areas where there is no surface water source, you need to provide them with boreholes. For villages and so on. That is okay. But for urban centres, and municipal centres, we have no business having boreholes there. We have no business having boreholes in Abuja and Lagos.
“There is a lot of fresh water in this country. 1,800 cubic meters per capita water supply. So, we are not a water-scarce country. But we are economically a water-scarce country because we are not able to distribute the water equitably.
“So, what we need is to see more investment by states, and not just a one-off investment because water is an organic thing. Population is growing. Every day, people are born. From the moment a baby is born he needs water to drink. So, the investment must outpace population growth.
“What we need to do now is to take our water supply facility to the current population. Without doing that, we will not get there and all these strategies that we are adopting is to make it possible.
“What we want is to be able to know where the boreholes are and we are not saying the federal government is the one to give permits for drilling boreholes. We just want it to fall under a national safety code and guidelines so that hydrological services will have all the data it needs.”
The Minister also cited that there were over 100,000 boreholes have been drilled in Abuja
He said:
“In Abuja, I heard over 100,000 boreholes are being drilled and it’s a huge concern and I hope FCT and states will be able to step up their monitoring so that we get away with these boreholes.”
