Quench my thirst ........ Intro

What does it take to have water to drink, cook with and  wash with in present day Africa? One would have imagined that in the 21st century, this would have been an easy task. Unfortunately it is not so. In a city as big and modern as metropolitan Lagos availability of clean water is still a major problem. Often times the water tap is dry, and when not dry the water is brown. Once in a while one may come across a free flowing tap with clean water. Why is water still a problem in the city? One of the main reasons is poor governance, which culminates in poor administration and then poor or non maintenance of available resources and infrastructures. Using Metropolitan Lagos as a case study, we find that the city itself is surrounded by and built upon water, yet her inhabitants struggle to obtain water for their daily needs. How much more places with little or no water, although one may also argue that majority of the water body surrounding and in Lagos are salt water and may not be so beneficial for man's everyday water needs. It's amazing to find that the water pipes from the water works to different parts of the city have not been changed since they were put in place more than 20 years ago. This leads to rust which eventually leads to burst pipes. When pipes get burst like this,one would have imagined that it would make the water works wake up to her duty by fixing it on time. However it usually takes forever to get them to fix such. Some people who have little or no access no pipe borne water are usually glad when this occurs, because it reduces the distance they have to trek in order to get water and they then start using this damaged pipe as their own source of water. This further damages the pipe. Who is then to blame, the people or the government? It is not uncommon in Lagos to see pools of water collect in the middle of the road, causing pot holes which cause delay in traffic flow and inadvertently damaging the road in question. This a lot of times may go unnoticed by the personnel in charge for months on end before anyone considers doing something about it. All of these culminate in a break in the flow of water to our homes. Now to the issue of the color of the water , it is often brown because it may not undergo the normal processes before it is pumped out and when it does it is stored in reservoirs that are not cleaned regularly. This makes us have water that may be brown as well as smelly a lot of times. This as made it necessary for landlords to reduce stress for themselves and occupants by digging their own well or bore hole. Thus reducing the burden of the common man. However, wells and bore holes are not without their own challenges....... To be continued