· Board blames unpaid bills
For several months now, parts of the Federal Capital Territory have been cut off from public water supply, with residents of affected areas groaning over the impact of the outage.
Investigations by The Abuja Inquirer shows that parts of Gwarimpa, Wuye and even Bwari Area Council have been without water supply for months, with no explanation coming from the authorities.
Specifically, parts of the Citec Area in Gwarimpa have been without water supply since March this year.
Some residents of the area, who spoke with our correspondent, claim to have cleared up their water bill up to March 2022 when they were disconnected.
The Public Relations Officer of the FCT Water Board, Mrs. Stella Mogbo, explained that the outage may be due to none payment of water bills insisting that the board makes water available across all its distribution chains.
Mogbo, however, referred this correspondent to the manager, Gwarimpa Area Office, Mr Ahmed, to get more clarifications on claims by some customers that they have paid up their water bills.
Attempts to reach the manager proved abortive as messages sent to his phone number were not responded.
However, waterpipes continue to rust away in parts of Wuye District where residents say they have been without water supply for months and counting.
A customer in the area, who preferred anonymity, wondered if water corporation has gone comatose in Abuja as there has been no water for over a month now.
The consumer who described the situation as the fall of the mighty said, “it is unfortunate that residents now have to add provision of water to the long list of issues they have to contend with in Abuja. Wuye is considered one of the highbrow areas yet we have been without water for several weeks so you can imagine the fate of other areas where low-income earners and those at the bottom of the food chain live.
“This is an area that used to have uninterrupted water supply, but the reverse has been the case in the past weeks and yet waterboard is not telling us anything so we don’t know when all these will end. How are the mighty fallen!”
The situation is not different at Bwari Central where areas around the JAMB headquarters have been without water supply despite their proximity to the lower Usuma Dam which supplies water to the whole of FCT.
Mr. Adekunle Daniel, who resides in the neighbourhood, said his area has been without water supply in the past two months.
He said efforts to reach the FCT Waterboard for an explanation yielded little result but excuses for the lack of water in the area.
Daniel while acknowledging past efforts made by the FCT Waterboard by carrying out serious maintenance work in the area, however, regretted that his neighbourhood was plunged back to the same situation they were before the repairs of waterpipes in September.
In his words, “It is a sad situation we find ourselves in this country. We have been without water supply since September when we complained of dirty water supplied by the waterboard. They rushed down attempting to fix the pipes at the First Bank Junction, but since then we haven’t had water in the whole of my area.
“I have been trying to talk with them at the water board but they keep coming up with excuses. The area manager said they were washing the tanks that got dirty due to the murky water that was supplied before, but that was over 2 weeks ago and up to this moment that I’m talking to you, we haven’t had a drop of water from government source except if we are able to buy from water vendors or neighbours who are wealthy enough to drill boreholes in their compounds.”
The Abuja Inquirer had in September exclusively reported that public water supply in parts of Bwari Area Council was contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
The customers in Bwari central alleged that the water supplied to the area has been murky and smelly since the board resumed distribution to the area after a three months outage.
A resident of the area, Mr. Daniel Soetan, who spoke with our correspondent at the time, expressed disappointment that government was comfortable enough to distribute dirty water to its citizens after 3 months of interruption.
In his words, “After 3 months of water outage FCT Water Board supplied water to Bwari, which should ordinarily be a relief but we were shocked that the water from the FCT Water Board is brownish and smell. How can the water supplied by government to its citizens be so unsafe and dangerous for consumption?”
The board swung to action after it was contacted by a team of The Abuja Inquirer, and investigations showed that the contamination was linked to a broken pipe along the distribution chain.
The FCT Water Board has experienced series of shut down maintenance in recent times with water supply to parts of the territory suspended for rehabilitation works.
Water supply to Airport, Gwagwalada, Maitama, Asokoro, Garki 1, Garki 2, Karu, Nyanya, Kubwa 1, Kubwa 2, Wuse 1 and Wuse 2, and the Central Area was interrupted in October last year. The FCTA had shut down phases 1, 3 and 4 treatment plants for five days to enable the connection of a bypass trunk line to Kubwa main line for the rehabilitation of the treated water tank’s roof slab.
Rehabilitation works at the Lower Usuma Dam in December last year, also led to a partial diversion of portable water from one area to another. For instance, while area like Kubwa had constant supply, water was diverted from places like Gwarimpa and some parts of Wuye district to allow for comprehensive repair work at the dam.
Allegations of a possible contamination at the dam also prompted the Management of FCT Water Board to assure residents that the Usuma Dam was safe for potable water supply.
