Update1: Nation’s farms run dry  while dams lie idle

Nigeria’s commitment to  pursuing year-round cultivation, with a view to increasing farm yields and foreign exchange earnings are being botched by a failure to implement irrigation. Meanwhile, several dams are lying idle across the country.

BusinessDay visited three states in the south west; Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, and Kwara in the north central, to ascertain the levels of utilisation of dams for irrigation of farms. Findings at the dams showed that irrigation is far from being considered a priority, even though the dams were not  being reasonably utilised for other purposes.

While it is said that the different dams across the country were constructed for specific uses, such electricity generation and water supply, their non-utilisation in most cases, suggest the need for them to be put to multipurpose usage, which will invariably include boosting food production through irrigation.

“We should expand our irrigable land and expansion of the irrigable land means harnessing the potentials of the dams. One of such ways is making irrigation canals to be able to use the water,” Kabiru Ibrahim, national president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria(AFAN) told BusinessDay by phone.

Ibrahim explained that even if some dams were constructed for different purposes, there has to be a deliberate effort put in place for them to be used for irrigation purposes.

At the Owiwi Dam in Ogun state, the “operations area” of the facility was under lock when our reporter visited. The dam was deserted, with dilapidated machinery visible from outside the barbed-wire fence. Interestingly, to access the dam, the known main-entrance is through one of the gates leading to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s farm in Ota. It appears the Federal Government sited the dam next to Obasanjo’s farm, but to access it, one will need to enter part of Obasanjo’s farm.

The untarred roads leading to the dam through the Obasanjo Farm had massive greenhouse construction in progress on both sides of the road. A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.

Many large scale greenhouses rely entirely on irrigation for water supply, something which the dam right next to the farm will offer in abundance. For all intents and purposes, the dam which was commissioned by former president Goodluck Jonathan in 2010, has been left grossly underutilised, and at best serves the Obasanjo farms.

Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president, Nigeria AgriBusiness Group (NABG), expressed the view that the operation of many dams across the country has been shrouded in mystery, and in many cases, “tactfully privatised” by serving private interests.

Ijewere had also previously said that most dams “have been deliberately monopolised and underutilised because government doesn’t want the private sector to take them over and run. Consequently, they are in disrepair, about 80 percent of them.”

At Asa dam in Kwara state, it appeared functional when BusinessDay correspondent visited, but while a pump operator said the dam provides water supply to the city, further enquiries within the city indicated this was not the case.
In order to ascertain the dam’s usability for irrigation, sources said that those desirous of taking advantage of the 44 million cubic metre (of water) dam, had to use fuel powered pumps to take water from the dam, down to the farms. The procedure is however expensive and counterproductive, as a piping system would have eliminated the need for pumps, making irrigation possible by the force of gravity.

The Ogbese Dam in Ekiti state, under construction since 2009 was also visited to ascertain its status and prospects for agriculture. The most visible output of the construction site when BusinessDay visited, was a concrete slab which is meant to serve as the dam’s overflow.

Reliable sources revealed that contractors only returned to the project site in February this year, having left about five years ago in 2012. The Ogbese dam for which the contract was awarded in 2009 for N5.5 billion was later revised to N7.8 billion in 2011, and was meant to serve hydro-electric and irrigation purposes.

BusinessDay was also reliably informed that the dam will be completed by 2019. While the return of contractors to the site after five years of abandoning the project could imply seriousness to finally get the job done, the 2019 target appears to be less than credible in view of government finances.

Also visited, was the Ikere Dam, on the outskirts of Iseyin, Oyo state. Sources informed BusienssDay, that the 4,700 hectares surface area dam has become a fishing centre, having failed to achieve the hydro-power, water supply, and irrigation objectives it was meant for. The dam, if functional, would have irrigated about 12,000 hectares of land but has remained uncompleted since 1983. Personnel at the dam refused to either grant entry or speak on the status of the dam.

Nigeria has about 264 dams with a combined storage capacity of 33 BCM of water for multipurpose use, including potable water supply, irrigation, hydropower, fisheries, eco-tourism etc, of which 210 are owned by the Federal Government, 34 by the States and 20 by private organisations.

According to the ministry of water resources, these dams have about 350,000 hectares of irrigable land around the vicinities ready for development.

 

CALEB OJEWALE