Inside Nigeria’s commercial hub where potable water is luxury

When Ayomide Ajayi, a 45-year-old teacher and mother of four, newly moved to Irawo – a suburb along Ikorodu road in Lagos, she didn’t realise just how much the lack of potable water in the community would affect her and her family.

A year later, Ajayi realised that the lack of clean water in the community was plaguing her life daily.

Irawo – a flood-prone area where she resides – lies north-east of Lagos and close to tributaries linked from the Ogun-Osun River Basin. The high content of iron III oxide (Fe2O3) and saltwater intrusion into the groundwater table have made portable water a scarce and precious commodity in the community.

“We cannot drink the water here and can’t wash our clothes with it. The iron content is too high,” she said.

During the rainy season, the lack of drinking water is somewhat abated, as Ajayi, like many others in the community, collects rain water in plastic containers to drink and cook. But during the dry season, the situation is severe as the water in the community becomes darker and scarier.

The lack of potable water in Lagos – Nigeria’s commercial hub, which is home to roughly 22 million people – is a challenge facing not only poor communities but also the middle-class and highbrow areas of the megacity.

When Chuks Okafor, a bank manager in one of the top banks in the country, was posted to Lagos from Benin, he was excited after renting an apartment in Lekki Phase 2.

Filled with the excitement of having an apartment in an expensive estate, Okafor switched on his sink tap to drink water just like he usually did while he was in Benin but he was disappointed.

The water coming out of the tap was coloured and high in salinity. “I was highly disappointed. I couldn’t drink the water coming out from the tap,” he said.

“I thought living in a highbrow area like Lekki means I would not be facing a water problem,” he added.

Despite having some of the most expensive real estates in the state, Lekki – located in the south-east of Lagos, with Victoria Island and Ikoyi districts to its west, the Atlantic Ocean to its south, Lagos Lagoon to its north, and Lekki Lagoon to its east – has a water problem.

Residents of Lekki and its environs depend largely on boreholes as a source of water supply, which, in most cases, is not good for drinking because it is contaminated due to the shallow water table of the area and the saltwater intrusion into the underground water.

“Due to the proximity of Lagos to the Atlantic Ocean, the general population is faced with problems of freshwater abstraction from the subsurface,” Obunadike Ebuka, a lecturer at the Department of Hydrogeology, Technische Universitat Bergeakademie, said in a study.

Read also: Enugu residents decry 40% increase in sachet water price

Although ‘access to safe and affordable drinking water for all’ is goal 6 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, many communities with a water problem in Nigeria’s megacity are far from the distribution network that provides clean water to homes.

“The water infrastructure of Lagos State is not developing at a fast pace with the population, and this has left many homes without potable water,” said Enovwo Odejegba, a lecturer at the Department of Water Resources Management and Agrometeorology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

“Most communities without clean water are far away from the water distribution network. So, they are left to provide water for themselves.”

According to her, the contamination of the groundwater in these communities is caused by a combination of saline intrusion, flooding, and improper waste disposal that impacts the quality of the groundwater water.

According to WaterAid Nigeria, three in 10 Nigerians do not have clean water close to their homes, putting them under constant threat from waterborne diseases like cholera.

Clean water for a price

The water problem in Irawo, Owode-Onirin, Lekki Phase 2, Ajah, Ijegun-Egba in Sattelite Town, and other communities in Lagos has turned water into a commodity.

“We spend a lot buying water for drinking and cooking. I spend an average of N12,000 monthly buying water from tanker drivers and sachet water producers,” Ajayi said. This amount is 20 percent of her N60,000 monthly income as a teacher.

Similarly, Okafor spends N21,000 monthly buying water from tanker drivers for the running of his Lekki home. “We use three tanks monthly and each costs N7,000,” he said.

The cost of getting clean water in these communities has doubled in recent weeks owing to the recent surge in diesel prices.

Tanker drivers delivering water to such communities are spending more on diesel as the price of fuel soared by almost 233 percent in one year to N750-800 per litre from N220-N240 in March last year.

The surge in the price of diesel is a result of the rally in global oil prices, buoyed by the Russia-Ukraine war.

“The cost for clean water is increasing daily because of the recent spike in diesel prices,” said Charles Dike, a trader of electronics who resides in Ijegun-Egba in Satellite town, whose community also faces a similar water problem.

He spends N4,000 weekly on the water for cooking and bathing but the cost has increased to N6,000 in recent days. “The water situation here is tiring and expensive,” he added.

According to a 2021 United Nations Children’s Fund, only 22 percent (44 million) of Nigerians have access to safely managed drinking water services.

“The financial and economic impact on the people in communities without potable water is huge and most of them are poor,” said Odejegba.

Climate change worsening the situation

Climate change is one of the most disruptive challenges Nigeria is currently facing. Its negative impacts are visible. Floods and drought are the common impacts of climate change on water availability.

“Flooding also impacts the quality of groundwater, especially in the unconfined aquifer with porous overburden characterised by high hydraulic conductivities offering little or no attenuation to contaminants coming from polluted runoff water from the flooded river and lagoons,” said Desmond Majekodunmi, an environmentalist.

WaterAid Nigeria said in a recent report that changing climate was making life harder for the world’s poorest people already struggling to get clean water.

According to the report, more frequent and extreme flooding is polluting fragile water sources and longer droughts drying them up.