Lagos — The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly designated March 22 of each year as the World Day for water by adopting a resolution This world day for water was to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development contained in chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21.

States were invited to devote the Day to implement the UN recommendations and set up concrete activities as deemed appropriate in the national context in which Nigeria is one. The water initiative goals includes, improve sustainable and equitable use of water, reduce water use/resource extraction, improve wastewater quality, ensure human access and needs are met, protect biodiversity. Others are to minimize inputs and energy use and support financial sustainability of water users. The topic for this year is "Coping with Water Scarcity

"The issue of access to safe water by the people has been described as a human rights issue by the United Nations hence the setting aside of March 22 of every year as World Water Day in order to draw the attention of the world to the issue of water."

Can Nigeria however cope with the water scarcity? According to Mr. Michael Oludare Ale, an engineer and the only Nigerian member of the World Water Council, the body charged with making policies on water issue, the significance of the world water's day is that the day will be used to look at the activities that has to do with water as it is related to women, children, industrial and domestic matters.

" Without water we cannot do anything. Water is life, so if water is life how do we make it available to the people in order to give them life, we must preserve our water and to the government water is human rights, it must be made available to the people without stress and recognise the facts that water is essential to life," the water engineer stressed.

Analysing the water situation in Nigeria, Ale scored the country low saying that the government did not see the provision of water as a duty that must be done. According to him, the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGs} where the issue of water provision featured prominently was not being implemented, "despite the fact that government has released money for the implementation of the MDG yet nothing had been done, no strategy was put in place to effectively monitor the water projects." He said the last reports of the United Nations rated Nigeria very low in the implementation of the MDG goals.

Ale said that the United Nations studies have predicted that in 2020 there is going to be water war if an integrated water resources management and water efficiency strategy are not implemented in Nigeria, so the question is: can Nigeria cope with water war? Definitely no.

"All we have now is project execution, there is no output base approach to how we are going to implement or sustained our infrastructures, our power and energy supply is poor and without electricity there can be no good water supply, we have to look at the sustainable means of supplying water to the rural and urban populace. "It is only in Nigeria that a motorized boreholes will be given to the rural areas which have no electricity supplies instead of a hand dug well, we should get our priority right and embrace an effective integrated water resources management," he stressed.

The water expert also frowned at the non-functioning of the nation's 13 River Basins spread all over the country, saying that the situation is a demonstration of lack of effective planning and maintenance culture in Nigeria. According to him, the nation's water policy of 2000 gave the River Basins the responsibility to provide water for domestic, farming and industrial use.

"The authorities of these Basins only collect money to execute projects with nothing to show for the money expended, nothing is being done, there are so many abandoned river basin projects all over the country. Nigeria is not making any concrete efforts at meeting the United Nations goals and from the look of things, we cannot cope with water scarcity in this country, we are not really focused on what we should do about the provision of water for the populace and that is unfortunate and disheartening," Ale emphasized.

He however said that if Nigeria want to meet the target, government has to set its priority right, embark on infrastructural development and embrace the compendium of actions set up by the United Nations, which is the recipe to meet the MDG.

"It is unfortunate that Nigeria is yet to start implementing the compendium of action to avoid the impending water disaster. Federal Government should urgently set up an advisory committee to implement the MDG on water and sanitation as well as declare this year as water and sanitation year where adequate attention will be focused on the issue of water and sanitation," he stated.

Ale also criticised the Federal Government's decision to merge agricultural ministry with that of water. He described the step as retrogressive and a misplaced priority.

According to him, government has concentrated so much on agriculture to the detriment of water and health. He advised that water ministry should be separated from that of agriculture. On the contract for the dredging of Nigeria's inland waterways, he described it as a case of another misplaced priority by the government.

"Who gave the license to dredge? The military must be the one to issue the license to dredge the waterways and not government ministry, that is the practice all over the world. We have deviated from the international practice and agreement, we pray we won' t have war. If we do, our military will not be able to access the waterways. Ale also called for the privatisation of water resources in Nigeria.

"Recently we went on a technical assessment tour of Katsina State dams and I discovered that one of the dams has been commissioned since 1983 by former President Shehu Shagari and up till now, 27 years after, it has not benefited the people.

"It is supposed to serve as water supply and for irrigations, but it is not functioning. Government should invite private investors to take over the dams so that the communities would benefit from the dams instead of leaving it in the hands of government that did nothing for 27 years. So I support the privatisation of dams for the purpose of irrigation and not for domestic use," Ale said

According to him, the nation's dams constructed with billions of naira are laying waste without any economic benefits to the nation due to official neglect and wrong priority.

"I pray we wont have war in Nigeria or else we will have problem of scarcity on our hands, fighting ourselves to get a bucket of water to drink, we should know the consequence of not having water to drink," reemphasized.