Establishment of water courts a criminal act, group tells Lagos govt

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), a civil society group, has described Lagos state government’s establishment of special courts to prosecute “illegal water service providers” as a cover for promoting water privatisation.

Babatunde Adejare, commissioner for environment, announced the introduction of the courts at a retreat organised by the government.

Adejare, who was represented by Babatunde Hunpe, special adviser to the governor on the environment, dismissed reports that the state planned to privatise water, but added that a public-private partnership was necessary.

He also said the government was not disposed to giving bailouts to the Lagos State Water Corporation (LSWC).

But in a statement issued in Lagos, ERA/FoEN described the water courts as a violation of the rights of Lagos citizens to water.

The group said such courts have no legal backing anywhere in Nigeria.

“We find this development totally absurd. Criminalizing the right of people to source for water when government has consistently failed to live up to its responsibility is simply scape-goating and passing the buck,” Akinbode Oluwafemi, deputy executive director of ERA/FoEN, said.

“There is no edict existing or in the works that allows any state government to set up a court for punishing anyone who has decided to provide water to his neighbor free.

“In the layman’s understanding, what this means is that anybody in our communities that carries a jerry-can of water from one house to the other is going to be accused of violating the law and sent to jail. This is absolutely disturbing.”

Oluwafemi frowned at references to already budgeted and appropriated funds to the LSWC as bail out, insisting that Adejare’s description of appropriated funds as rescue connotes that the state government has converted the corporation into a private enterprise, whose statutory due in the state budget is now called bail-out.