Water is LIFE. A large portion of our body is water. It aids in transporting essential nutrients through our body. Imagine using unsafe water to perform all these functions – unimaginable diseases like cholera, diarrhea, and so on.

In the 60s and the early part of the 80s, many major cities in Nigeria had functional water treatment plants (I can recall the faint smell of chlorine in the tap water we were drinking on Lagos Island). Unfortunately, the government is not helping matters. All those plants have gone moribund with no plans to revive them.
We are all now sourcing our water, installing mini water treatment plants in our homes, or adding safe water sachets to kill germs. And the closer you are to places like Lekki, the harder it becomes to treat the salt-laden water coming off the ground. This has pushed the population to depend on pure water sellers (provided they are honest and genuine) to get relatively safe water to drink. Some are boiling their water, but the cost of gas is making it even more difficult.

To make matters worse, some states are considering charging their citizens for digging boreholes.

In my opinion, the safest source of water for home consumption in Nigeria, now, are the genuine pure and bottled water sellers. Otherwise, we boil or buy indoor water filters.

By: Abayomi Abiru [MNIFST].