A multi-billion water project aimed at ameliorating the historic water scarcity of Benue’s second largest city- Gboko, was vandalized and abandoned by successive administrations, 28 years after its construction and commissioning, investigations by 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE have shown.
About a year ago, Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom had pledged to revive the 9,000 metric tons Ameladu water project located in Mkar, Gboko. The water works would supply more than 500,000 inhabitants of the area with clean drinking water.
Conceived and executed by the President Ibrahim Babangida administration in 1993 during the tenure of Governor Moses Adasu, the project’s initial cost was put at N40 million, but the Benue State Commissioner for Water Resources, Engineer Dondo Ahire has said about N19 billion is needed to revive the facility.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE reports that subsequent governors of the state only came, saw the project which was completed 28 years, but failed to put it to use.
Upon completion, the project was handed over to the state as confirmed by Governor Ortom who said former President Babangida executed the project in 1993.
“I will liaise with the Federal Government, Development Partners and Senate Committee on Water so as to find ways of bringing the project back to life,” Ortom has pledged when he visited the facility on June 2, 2020.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE learnt that the water plant, after its completion, was test run, worked for only a few months and abandoned.
Due to the abandonment, machines and electrical fittings of the project were vandalized. Since then, water has not come out of its pipes for people to use.
Twenty-two-year-old resident of Ameladu,Najime Tarver lamented that residents have been experiencing acute water scarcity in the area for quite a long time now, saying “we fetchwater from either wells or streams. We buy a gallon of water at N20.”
He said people living in the area have been suffering from typhoid fever which he said can be attributed to the poor quality of water theymake use offrom the streams in particular in the area.
Tarveshima Najime, 30, whose father is the kindred head at Ameladu where the water project is located, said most of the pipes have been vandalized by locals, thereby rendering the facility unworkable and unable to serve the purpose for which it was set up. He said “this ismaking life so unbearable for the people living in the community.
“The community relies mostly on stagnant water from swampy areas and a bore hole recently dug by a Catholic priest in the area.
“Motorcycle riders have made the place their washing point where they wash their motorcycles and also go through strenuous means to fetch for others with no particular fee depending on your understanding with them,” Najime said.
Benue State Commissioner for Water Resources Dondo Ahire told 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE that, his principal Governor Ortom has not been able to get the major stakeholders to revive the Ameladu water works as at the time of this report so that the targeted residents can draw water from it.
He said “the state government is currently trying to source for fund from the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, World Bank Project and others to revive the project,” adding that “the original design was faulty and that the place was also vandalized. We will need to redesign and rebuild it.
“For the project to be rebuilt, we are targeting N19 billion,” Engineer Ahire told the 21stCENTURY CHRONICLE.
The Ameladu water project, despite as it is, issupplying water to the people in Gboko and environment, the commissioner said, adding that “as interim measure, the state government is drilling boreholes throughout the state.”
But another resident of Ameladu, Mannessah Akaa, 39, said the state government was playing politics with the Ameladu water project.
Akaa told the 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE that “the state government is not serious. It is when Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs Senator George Akume discussed the matter of the water works with his Water Resources counterpart that the governor (Ortom) rushed and made the pledge to revive the water works.
However, Engineer Ahire has since confirmed that the state governor has not been able to redeem the pledge he made more than a year ago to revive the Ameladu water works.
While the state government is shopping for fund to revive the water works, the residents of Gboko and environs who ought to be fetching clean drinlable water from the Ameladu water works will have to keep making do withcontaminated water from the ponds, wells and streams with the attendant health risks that come with it.
