By Sule Aliyu Bauchi
Following the 14-days of blackouts from the national electricity power supply that have grounded almost all activities, water scarcity has hit the Bauchi metropolis and environs.
People living in the Bauçhi metropolis are facing acute water shortage.
People can be seen looking for available sources of water, particularly in the GRA and other areas where a few individuals are allowing people to fetch from their boreholes
While those in authority blame epileptic power supply and high cost of diesel as responsible for the problem, residents are forced to explore other sources of getting water for their daily use
Meanwhile the State Government said that it would be spending the sum of N400 million monthly for the purchase of diesel, should the power outage now ravaging the entire Northern states persist.
The disclosure was made by the Board Chairman of the State Water Board, Alh Yayanuwa Zainabari, while briefing journalists along with the Permanent Secretary of Bauchi State Urban Water and Sewerage Corporation, Engr Aminu Aliyu Gital,
Zaimabari said that his board has already started purchasing the diesel at between N1,200 and N1,400 per litre.
He said, “Even at N1,200, we are talking of about 40 million of litres per truck, and for us to go full production, we are talking of a truck in three days, which means we would require ten trucks in a month”.
Zaimabari said, “So if we say 40 million per truck, we talking of N400 million which is quite exorbitant, so we pray power will be restored as quickly as possible so that we will be able to provide adequate water to Bauchi metropolis and all the good people of Bauchi State”.
He explained that the water board defied the power outage to supply pipeborne water to the teeming populace of Bauchi metropolis taking into cognisance the importance of drinking clean water, querying “Nobody could estimate the number of people who died in the past ten days in those power outage states as a result of drinking contaminated wells water”.
It is for this reason, Zainabari said that the Bauchi State Government devised an alternative way of pipeborne water provision to the people through the use of diesel to it’s power generating plants, emphasizing that 70 per cent of human body is made up of water.
Alh. Yayanuwa Zaimabari explained that the state government directed the board to supply water to the people at least on skeletal basis, adding, “And hopefully, we were able to supply water to all the nooks and crannies of Bauchi metropolis”.
He added, “As a way of backup, we also have our water tankers that we were able to deploy them to fetch water from Gubi dam for distribution to hard reach areas of Bauchi metropolis. This exercise will be on until the state gets power from the national grid”.
Zainabari concluded, “So we pray power will be restored to Bauchi state as quickly as possible so that we will be able to provide adequate water to Bauchi metropolis and all the good people of Bauchi State.
Also speaking Engr Aminu Aliyu Gital who is the Permanent Secretary of Bauchi State Urban Water and Sewerage Corporation
said that potable drinking water would be supplied solely to cushion the effects of the water scarcity on the people.
He said that aside from the skeletal services, trucks of water tanks would be moving around major streets to provide portable drinking water as a complement to all the measures.
According to him, at the initial stage, Bala Abdukadir Muhammad had earlier repaired the faulty transformer at the Gubi Dam site main treatment plant as well as settled the entire outstanding bill of Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JEDC) before the collapse of the National grid.
Yayanuwa Zainabari and Engr Aminu Aliyu Gital appealed to the people of Bauchi State to bear with the situation, assuring that the government will continue to support the people in those directives to cushion the effect until normalcy returns to the sector.
They also called on members of the general public to always avoid vandalisation of Water pipes and unnecessary waste of portable drinking water.
In the same vein, Executive Secretary of the Bauchi State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Abdulrahman Imam, has directed the distribution of water through water tanks to some areas of the Bauchi metropolis
The gesture is to alleviate the suffering people are facing because of the non-availability of water from Gubi following the two-week electricity power supply blackout in the Northern States.
