“Digging Deeper” Evidence on Water Crisis and its Solution in Nigeria for Bayelsa State: A Study of Current Scenario

By 2023, global population is expected to reach 8 billion and increasing demand on freshwater resources over the next decades including continuation of economic development will increase pressure on the earth’s finite resources. As a result, bold and novel solutions is required for today’s human development despite it challenges. Since, the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 marked a new level of political recognition of the importance of water to development. For the first time, this included a target to ensure access to affordable, reliable and sustainable water for all – collectively known as Sustainable Development Goal 5. Interestingly, the fundamental starting point for food and life is water and its scarcity are a critical global issue. Over the past century, the quest for development has spurred the desire to explore the possibilities of harnessing all resources to advantage including water, which is 75% human made water content, while the whole earth is 70% water. These efforts were such that cogniscance has not been given to the environment where the entire processes take place. Consequently, around the world 2.2billion people lack access to adequate supplies of water and close to 4.2billion people suffer from the consequences of poor sanitation. Millions of people, especially children, die each year from contaminated water and about 95% of deadly diseases in human body is associated with the consumption of liquid content, while over 25million Nigerians are diagonized to die from highly chemicalized products. Recognizing that water is critical to sustainable development, it concludes that there is an urgent need for increased awareness among leaders so that adequate strategies can be made for development under conditions of severe water scarcity and that there is absolute need for team work between national governments, multilateral bonds, UN agencies, professional associations, the private sectors and development partners (NGOs) etc., if we are to develop and manage our water sustainably. Government should take up the responsibility of providing potable water. Furthermore, there is need for strong policy, legal and regulatory frameworks, more effective implementing organizations and appropriate instruments. This can be achieved principally through strengthening the capacity of relevant institutions and ministries/agencies to be more pro-active in monitoring and compliance. More importantly, as water scarcity intensifies, we must remember that without water, there is no food, and without food, there is no security. However, technological advancement has created a sense that no problem is too big for our collective innovation potential if we invest appropriately in research and development. But we must not ignore or diminish the need for collective action to solve structural and often systemic problems. We also must not underestimate the urgency of the challenge. The cost of inaction can quickly destabilize communities when water is at stake. This is especially important if Nigeria hopes to achieve her developmental priorities of poverty reduction and re-creation of wealthy prosperity for her citizens as envisioned in the “Seven-point Agenda”, “Vision 20 2035” and SDGs.