Safeguarding public water supply in Lagos

The recent report on the circulation of contaminated water
obtained by water vendors from the facilities of the Lagos
State Water Corporation (LSWC) in Ijora-Badia area of Lagos
expectedly generated concern across the city. The water was
said to contain a high bacterial load and cancer-causing
elements that could be lethal if consumed for a long period.
Indeed, the reportedly tainted water was suspected to be
contributing to the high incidence of diarrhoea and other
water-borne diseases in the affected area.
It is alarming that safe drinking water and basic sanitation,
which is Target 10 under Goal Seven of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), have continued to be an illusion
for many people in Nigeria and the rest of the world.
According to the United Nations, at least 783 million people
the world over lack access to good water.
The comprehensive analysis of samples of the affected water
in Ijora-Badia conducted by the Chemistry Department of
University of Lagos, following a request by a national
newspaper which broke the story, gives cause for concern. The
tests reportedly “revealed a frightening chemical and biological
composition. The silica level detected is 14.20, which is at
least 400 times higher than the World Health Organisation’s
(WHO) acceptable maximum of 0.03. Phosphate, a chemical
that causes digestive problems to both humans and animals,
is five times higher (at 5.176) than the maximum level
permissible by the WHO (1.0). The analysis also reveals 0.498
level of lead, a dangerous carcinogenic metal.”
A senior lecturer in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the same
university, Dr. Chimezie Anyakora, who has conducted
extensive research on water contamination across Nigeria,
further broke down the result of the analysis, explaining that
the level of lead detected in the water should be of great
concern to the people directly using it and Lagosians in
general.
As he put it, “Obviously, the bacterial count (2.40 X 103
colony-forming unit per millimetre) which is at least 20 times
more than the WHO limits (1.0 x 102), poses the danger of
short-term diseases like typhoid, dysentery and diarrhoea. But,
my major concern is the lead level. There should not be any
lead at all in the water.”
“Lead”, he continued, is a very carcinogenic element. If one
ingests bacteria in water, they reproduce and attack the body
when their number is large enough. The typhoid, dysentery,
diarrhoea or other diseases that it will give you in the short-
term can be treated if detected in time. But the problems are
those who are not feeling sick at the moment and develop
long-term illnesses in the long run because of the heavy
metal, lead. Lead, like other heavy metals, accumulates in the
body over time. Someone who drinks water contaminated with
it like this may live a normal life without feeling sick for years.
When one is supposed to be living a good life, that is when it
causes kidney failure, cancer and many other ailments and
problems that may be too expensive to manage.” He surmised
that the water portends grave danger for anyone who drinks it
continuously for two years.
The problem of water contamination in Ijora-Badia area of
Lagos has been linked to the fact that the water-pipe
configuration in the area is disorganised. Some of the pipes
are laid by private water vendors in sewages and polluted
drainages, with the high risk of contamination of the water in
the sometimes leaky pipes. Such water may be tainted by do­
mestic wastes and poisonous chemicals such as dyes and
other industrial pollutants.
If most Nigerians had access to functional water taps, the
ubiquity of water hawkers and all manner of vendors of the
essential item would have been minimised. The tragedy of this
“independent” piping and selling of water is that nobody can
guarantee the quality of the water that gets to the consumer.
There is a likelihood that a good measure of this nondescript
water is not subjected to any basic test or analysis before it
is unleashed on the unwary public.
It is, however, noteworthy that the Water Corporation has
waded into the matter and given assurances that the water
supply to Lagos is safe. The managing director of the
corporation, Engr. Shayo Holloway, said that the tests carried
out on water samples taken from Ijora-Badia did not reveal
the presence of lead or iron. He, nevertheless, admitted that
the activities of illegal water vendors who lay water pipes
through drainage and other unhygienic environment do affect
the operations of the corporation. Some of the vendors, he
explained, connect pumping machines to the corporation’s
main pipes and pump water through improperly laid and
sometimes broken pipes, which could affect the quality of the
water. He added that the agency has been working hard to
monitor the vendors to stop the illegal activity.
We commend the water corporation for the dispatch with
which it has addressed this concern. The agency must stop
the illegal laying of pipelines in unhealthy places in Ijora-Badia
and any other affected part of the state. It must also speed
up its long-term plan to “fix water on the frontage of every
house” to reduce the dependence on private water vendors in
parts of the state.