Water deficit: Relief is coming, Sanwo-Olu tells Lagosians

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, says the state is working out a means to resolve the challenges caused by the lack of potable water in the state.

Sanwo-Olu spoke on Monday while featuring as a guest on ‘Your View’, a Television Continental (TVC) programme.

Speaking on his administration’s achievements, the governor said the issue of water in the state is a major challenge that his government is working to address.

“Water is a challenge and I will be honest with you. We need to raise the funding that is required to fix it and it is a lot of money. We are talking about N100 to 150 billion,” he said.

“We have a major waterworks in Iju and Adiyan. We are building from what we have now — currently, 70 million gallons per day which are running at less than 50 percent because these were built in the 1970s. But we are currently building a 50-million-gallon additional infrastructure that’s slowing us down.

“Once we can do the really big ones, we will move to the transmission which also requires funding. It is like power; once you do the generation of water, you know to be able to transmit it, which has to spread around the city of Lagos.

“I also want to appeal to Lagosians that relief for water is coming. The funding for water is not cheap.”

Sanwo-Olu’s statement comes on the heels of a two-part investigation by TheCable, which showed that despite N12.29bn allocation, Lagos residents can’t access water from government pipelines, while many residents now depend on sachet water.