One of the borehole taps.

*We couldn’t go back to drinking water with animals— Residents

By Iwunze Jonathan

Until the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committee, WASHCom’s foray into their domain, the people of Kabawa, in Abinsi town, Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, fished and farmed from the polluted Benue river.

They drank from the river too even as some of the villagers, nomadic shepherds and their herds waded into its currents to bathe, defecate and sate their thirst.

Large deposits of human and animal waste are a common sight on the riverbank, and right inside the water, leaving the community vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

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“Cases of water-related diseases are not new in our community,” disclosed Fatimah Bala, a Kabawa resident and mother of four.

“Most of the time that I take my children to the primary health care centre, it is always because of typhoid, stomach problem, or frequent stooling,” she said.

Over 25 people died recently from cholera in Benue State, the state’s Commissioner for Information, Ngunan Adingi, had said.

Adingi disclosed this to journalists at the Government House in Makurdi, the state capital, urging riverine dwellers to avoid untreated water, the major cause of cholera.

She said contaminated water has been identified as the cause of the death of 25 persons in Agatu and Guma local government areas in the state.

In a separate statement, the state Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Joseph Ngbea, also advised residents living at the riverbanks and residents of the state to be wary of contaminated water.

Worried by the situation, Yakubu Adama and Aminu Yusuf, both WASHCom members and natives of Kabawa, started a campaign to educate members of the community on the need to use only water from improved sources and avoid drinking from the Benue river.

“Now a good number of us are complying, and we use the river water only for bathing and washing, while we use the water from the borehole (manpower) for drinking and cooking,” said Adama.

Learning the hard way

Previous efforts by the duo bore no fruit as they were rebuffed by members of the community who thought they exaggerated the situation.

“It was always very discouraging,” said Adama, “to imagine that we would suffer insults and rejection just because we were trying to save our people from eating their own faeces and getting sick.”

But Adama and his partner were vindicated in the wake of the recent cholera outbreak in the community.

“When the recent cholera epidemic struck,” he said, “we saw it as an opportunity to reach the hearts of our people on the pressing need to avoid drinking from the river, pointing to it as the current cause of the sickness and deaths in the community.”

Although it was a sad time and a period of mourning for the community, the duo’s emphatic message finally struck a chord in their hearts and many began to take heed of their counsel.

It would be recalled that when Benue suffered a cholera outbreak in January 2021, Kabawa community was among the most severe hit by the crisis.

“So far, seven persons have died in Kabawa, most of whom were children and a few adults. Several others are currently hospitalised and are being treated for the disease. We pray that they will recover soon,” said Adama.

He stressed that but for the timely intervention of the World Health Organisation, WHO, who intervened, the mortality rate would have been higher.

The recent outbreak of the water-borne disease is hardly the first time that communities in Benue State would suffer such gruesome experience.

In March 2008, at least 25 people were reported dead in Makurdi, the state capital, while 10 people died in Otukpo of the cholera disease. The cases reported in Makurdi occurred in areas near the Benue river.

These statistics show that the epidemic has been a recurring decimal in the lives of the Benue People. In 2016, 132,121 cholera cases and 2,420 deaths were reported to WHO worldwide.

Outbreaks continued to affect several countries. Overall, 54% of cases were reported from Africa, 13% from Asia and 32% from Hispaniola.

Cholera remains a major public health problem and affect primarily developing world populations with no proper access to adequate water and sanitation resources.

Kabawa community is no doubt part of this often-cited statistics of developing populations with inadequate water resources afflicted by the cholera disease.

Sustainable initiative

Kabawa community has three manually-operated boreholes at different locations. One is in the Jukun settlement, the second is at the community primary school, and the third is located at the edge of the community close to the river.

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Shortly after the boreholes were constructed and donated to the community by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), they broke down due to lack of proper maintenance. The joy that heralded their construction faded away with the smiles on the faces of the Kabawa people.

They needed water for sustenance, but the only option they had left was to return to drinking from the infested river.

“It was a very delicate and trying situation,” recounted Yusuf.  “We could not go back to drinking water with animals. All our efforts would simply have been for nothing.

“We could not just sit back and wait for the NGO that constructed the boreholes to come and fix them, neither could we depend on the government to do so. Thus, we decided that we were going to do something about it as fast as we could,” he said.

The WASHCOM associates paid the cost of the repair of the boreholes to the delight of the entire community. Subsequently, they adopted a method of regulating the operations of the boreholes to avoid mishandling and another episode of damage.

They would keep the boreholes open from morning till 12p.m., after which they will be locked. The boreholes are reopened for use by 4p.m., until 7p.m., after which they are locked till the next morning.

Besides their joy and appreciation of the initiative, the Kabawa community has developed a culture of orderliness by which they fetch water on a queue.

The recent cholera outbreak is undoubtedly a grim reminder about why other riverine dwellers of Benue should develop and implement sustainable initiatives that would benefit their various communities.

Perhaps they would take a cue from Yusuf and Adama’s sanitary water scheme in Kabawa.

Iwunze, a WASH, Solutions and Data PhotoJournalist, wrote in from Kabawa, Benue State.

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