Today, 22 March, 2016, the world is
celebrating World's Water Day. A day set aside when different organizations,
institutions and government agencies sit in round table to hold seminars and
programs to discuss about the
shortages of water for a population in the world
that is running to 7 billion people.
Most of the discussions and seminars
of these various agencies will be center on why water is inevitable in human
life, and the need of having potable water. At the end of these talk shops,
there will be some suggestions that for potable water to be available,
governments should immediately commence projects of expanding the supply of
water to many homes and communities.
Yes, it is a basic necessity for
every home and families to have access to drinking water. But the truth is that
governments in different parts of the world running policies of austerity and
privatization do not have an agenda of providing water for everybody to drink.
They don't any longer see it as their basic social and welfare responsibility.
Therefore, all over the world,
people suffer daily from shortages of water supply because of the government
policies of not providing adequate clean water for the poor in the various
communities, cities and town. The worst hits are the poor people in most
backward countries of Africa, Middle East, Asia and South America. But even in
the US, thousands in Detroit, the former capital of the auto industry, have
been poisoned by lead contaminated water after the source of the city's water
supply was of changed in 2014 in order to save money.
In Nigeria successive governments
under different agenda of neo-liberal capitalism are unable to provide this
basic need for the working masses because of the self-serving interest they
represent.
We have seen a situation whereby
government is brandishing empty agenda and programs of providing social
amenities, when in the real sense it is to award contracts to the individuals
as their own share of public loots at the expense of the masses.
This explains why millions of people
especially in the ghetto slums like in Ajegunle (one of the highest populated
ghettos in Nigeria) don't have access to clean water. The poor people have to
queue to fetch water from the dug pit usually described as wells or boreholes
which are usually salty and dangerous for human consumption.
Worse still, they
will have to walk down to neighboring community or many streets away to fetch
water. However, the worst of it is they might not even get water as there could
be no power supply or fuel for generator for the water sellers to pump water.
Sometimes, when there is leakage in
one or more of the pipes that run through the stinking canals and gutters in
the slum areas you will see children and adults forming circle to fetch water
from this broken pipe for hours as long water run.
It is the failure of the government
to provide clean water that has forced ordinary people not to mind endangering
their health by going for salt water or unhygienic sources of water.
In Ajegunle, Lagos, the APC led
Ajeromi Ifelodun Local Government, apparently to create new avenues to loot
public resources, provide borehole water in some communities.
However, in most
cases due to poor quality jobs done, albeit at inflated prices, these boreholes
hardly last a month before they begin to degenerate or outright collapse.
It is shame that the government of
Lagos, the economic nerve centre of Nigeria, which prides itself as the centre
of excellence and state of aquatic splendor cannot provide water for its
residents despite its huge wealth.
From a report published It was
reported in Vanguard newspaper on 16 September, 2014 that the immediate past
Lagos State government of Babatunde Fashola through the Lagos State Water
Corporation (LSWC) had embarked on a project of constructing 38 water
facilities spread across the state with a production capacity of over 210
million gallon per day.
The fact is that there is no
evidence of any tangible progress made with this project even though it is not
itself adequate to cater for the water need of the vast population of the state.Yet the same government has
reportedly planned to increase water output from 210mgd to 745mgd in the whole
of Lagos State between 2010 to December 2020. Already we have passed the
halfway into the target, yet there is nothing to show that any tangible progress
has been made.
To begin to resolve water crisis in
Lagos there must be adequate funding of Water Corporation under a democratic
control of workers and community people. This will ensure judicious and
transparent allocation of the resources to provide potable to communities.
There is no technical obstacle to
provision of water in Lagos nay Nigeria, the problem is the developing economic
crisis and neo-liberal capitalist policies of the anti-poor government. This
explains why the welfarist government of Lateef Jakande in the Second Republic
was able to provide drinking water for many communities in Lagos in early 1980s
before the world economy became more unstable and neo-liberal capitalism became
the new global order.
While it is necessary to struggle
now to demand potable water and proper sanitation in communities, socialists
understand that for clean water to run at every single home of the working
masses it would require a working people's government that sees water as basic
need, not a commodity for profit or a means of looting public resources.
Therefore, the struggle for provision of potable water must be linked with need
for a working people political alternative on socialist program.
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This article was written by Fidel Davynovich and published on 22 March, 2016 in
www.socialistnigeria.org
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