Acute water scarcity has hit Lokoja the Kogi state Capital and its environs for the past three months.
A correspondent of the TheAnalystNG who visited some areas of the city on Wednesday reports that the scarcity affected both residential and commercial premises in the state capital and environs.
TheAnalystNG reports that the waterworks was built by the PDP administration of Governor Ibrahim Idris at a cost of N12 billion with the capacity to treat and reticulate 600 million litres of water per day to residents of Lokoja and its environs.
The scarcity has not only affected the production and distribution of sachet (pure water) as many of the manufacturers used to source their water from their personal boreholes, while others fold up due to acute water scarcity in the area.
While few still in production have increased the price from N100 per bag to N150 per bag as the time of filling in this report.
Some residents were also observed to have started searching for commercial water hawkers popularly called “mairuwa”who were no where to be found.
Due to the Perenial water scarcity which many residents acknowledged to be the worst since the commissioning of Lokoja greater water works, for the first time, a cart of 12 cans of 25-litre volume which was selling for N300 now sells between N600-₦750 pending on the distance.
However, people living in native areas of Kabawa, Unguwan Kura,Madabo, Palace, Shabayagi, Cantonment, Old Market and others are now sourcing water directly from untreated River Niger.
Some residents of the area who spoke with this report called on the ministry of water resources to restore water supply in order to safe their lives from outbreak of pandemic.
“If nothing is done immediately am afraid, anytime from now there may be outbreak of pandemic which may be difficult to control ” Ibrahim said
Speaking on the development,a staff of water board who doesn’t want his name on print informed journalists that the water treatment plant was not shut down due to electro-mechanical problems as been speculated in social media.
“I can tell you authoritively that nothing has happened to the water treatment plant” our source maintained
When pressed further,our source directed us to the ministry of water resources.
Efforts made by this reporter to reached the Commissioner for water resources proved abortive as our reporter was informed that he is busy with how to restore normal water supply.
