Recently, the Executive Governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Soludo paid a working visit to the multi-billion naira Nkissi Waterworks, Onitsha. The waterworks which has huge water treatment facilities located in strategic locations in Onitsha was attracted by the Jim Nwobodo administration of the old Anambra State in collaboration with the World Bank. The financial components of the project came from the federal and state governments.
While the same gigantic water schemes were also erected at Enugu and Abakaliki and are currently operational, the Onitsha water scheme went moribund for years owing to neglect and lack of maintenance by past governments. It is heartwarming that Governor Chukwuma Soludo took special interest in the project which is estimated to be the biggest essential service parastatal in Anambra State.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Greater Onitsha Water Supply Scheme, a regional water supply project, was designed to supply treated water simultaneously to the main city of Onitsha and environs covering Nkpor, Obosi, parts of Ogbaru, Ogbunike, 3-3 and Trans-Nkissi with the growing population of residents in mind. At inception, the water scheme was delivering regular drinking water to thousands of homes across Onitsha metropolis and beyond which enhanced good health and hygiene among the citizens.
With his visit to the water scheme, the governor may have seen how land grabbers encroached deep into the waterworks and built residential houses; how costly equipments were vandalized; and how part of the premises was converted into a farmland. Governor Soludo must have been shocked at the conversion of the expansive concrete water reservoirs to fish ponds and offices into livestock bans.
By international standards, any water works used for public water supply is prohibited from encroachment or erection of residential buildings. This is to avoid the poisoning of public water by human activities and the possible leakage of chlorine gas which is lethal to human life.
It is the abandonment of the World Bank assisted water scheme by past governments of the state that struck a final blow on the finances of the Anambra State Water Corporation which consequentially meant years of nonpayment of salaries and other entitlements to staff of the corporation.
Governor Soludo’s visit to the water scheme is a good omen for the corporation. It highlights his good heart, sense of duty and willingness to touch all sectors of the state economy for provision of dividends of democracy to Ndị Anambra.
While calling for the urgent revamping of the Nkissi Water Treatment Plant, Onitsha and other water facilities in Anambra state, it is necessary for the state government and the entire people of the state to realize the grave health hazards of continued consumption of dirty and untreated borehole water, some of which contain dangerous chemicals like lead and iron and contamination from sewages. Many lives have been lost to that regard.
History will remember Governor Soludo positively if he also commences the sanitization of the criminal encroachment on the waterworks by land grabbers and recovering adjoining public properties for further development agenda. No sensible government can afford to lose such valuable project at a time it is most needed.
God bless Anambra state.
Written by SIR VICTOR ONONYE
Comments are closed for this post.