*Residents, Animals Compete To Drink From Same Stream
By Mohammad Ibrahim
30-year-old Deborah (not her real name), a housewife in Madamai community, in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna state, northwest Nigeria, treks a kilometre daily to fetch water from a nearby stream for her domestic chores.
Her 10-year old daughter and 8-year old son, usually wake up as early as 5 am to accompany her to the stream to fetch the water.
Deborah and her children are not the only ones in the village who wake up early to rush to the stream to fetch water, and sometimes to wash their clothes.
Esther, another resident and also a housewife, said, “any woman who wants water, must wake up as early as possible” to join other women from the community at the stream to fetch the water.
These women and their children have to go to the stream early each day in order to fetch water before animals in the community go there to drink. Once the animals start drinking, “it becomes difficult for any person to fetch again,” she said, because the water becomes contaminated.
“We drink water from the same stream with some of the animals in this community. So, in order not to drink after the animals, women wake up early to go and fetch before the goats and pigs are released by their owners”, Andrew Lekwot, also a resident Madamai village, confirmed to visiting staff of Christian Aid, an International NGO, alongside their local partners and development journalists, who visited the area.
Residents narrated to the visiting team how water always become scarce in the village, particularly during dry season, even though some say, water from the only stream near the village never dries up, as it lasts the whole year.
They described it as a clean natural water, despite the fact that it is covered with leaves without knowing where the stream flows from.
It was also observed that two boreholes provided by a member of the House of Representatives, Gideon Goni in the community were not functioning.
“The first borehole provided in the area was about ten years ago by our Lawmaker, and since it stopped functioning, we couldn’t get it repaired. This is because despite about 25,000 naira spent by people in the community to get it repaired, it still stopped functioning.
“There was another water pump provided in our church premises, which has also stopped working. This is why we are having water shortage in the community, but thank God for the stream where the women trek a kilometre to get water from. It’s same water our animals in the community drink from,” he said.
The Village Head, Galadima Bulus, equally buttressed the point by appealing to local government authorities to help them solve the water issue in the area.
“Presently, we, our women and the kids always suffer from Typhoid. We think it has to do with
the water we drink. So we need help from meaningful individuals and government,” he said.
An official of a Non-Governmental Organization working in the community on Voice2People, a governance project, also called on Local and Kaduna state government to assist the people by providing a water tank beside the stream and install a machine to pump water into the tank for benefit of the community.
He/She says the gesture will help protect inhabitants from drinking the water alongside their animals, as well as preserving the water throughout the year.
