50 million Nigerians lack access to potable water, says minister

Suleiman Adamu, minister of water resources, says the federal government will achieve the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) before the 2030 target.

Adamu said this in Abuja while speaking on the inability of the nation to meet up with Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), set for 2015.

He said Nigeria only succeeded in hitting 69 percent access to potable water, six percent short of the 75 percent target set by the UN in year 2000, adding that 50 million Nigerians lack access to portable water.

“We subscribe to the Millennium Development Goals, (and) by 2015, we were supposed to have achieved 75 per cent coverage for water supply and a certain percent for sanitation, unfortunately we are not able to meet that,” Adamu said.

“We met the water supply by only 69 per cent but we did very poorly in sanitation, so this 69 per cent means over 50 million Nigerians still don’t have access to portable water and that is a huge number of people.

“So we have come up with a programme which we are going to unveil in detail at the National Council on Water Resources meeting next week. That programme is aimed at ensuring we are now able to meet the SDG target for 2030 and there will be 100 percent access for everybody.

“We x-rayed that masterplan we dissect it and came up with some specific interventions that we think will take the water resources sub sector to a more robust level by the year 2030.

“Essentially, that is what we came to do, at the initial stage when we were appointed we had a retreat in December 2015 and we came up with some specific action plans and we kept on developing them and got them to operate, now we are in a position now to inform Mr. President this is what we are doing and to seek his blessing. That is why we are here.”

He said his team is dusting the national water policy and national water bill, which has been in draft form for over 10 years, to work on them to move the sector forward.

“We also looked at some institutional issues like the national water policy which had been in existence though in draft form, the national water bill which has also been in draft form for more than 10 years and not much work had been done, the national water strategy.

“So we dusted all these things because for us to take the water resources sector where we want it to go or where it should go, these institutional issues and legal frameworks need to be in place.

“So if those things are ready, it can help in the other interventions or other programmes that we planned which includes the national water supply and sanitation programme and the national irrigation programme”.

“We have coverage of water supply and sanitation. We want to meet the SDG goals before 2030. We need to meet the target for open defecation by 2025 because we have subscribed to that, these are some of the targets.

“The President welcomed our presentation and he said he is looking forward to it. Now we have to break it down into specific actions, seek specific approvals and he is waiting anxiously to hear from us.”