Laolu Elijah, Ibadan

Over 200 years after an acute shortage of potable drinking water, hundreds of residents of Alabata Community in the Akinyele Local Government area of Oyo State were overjoyed when a non-governmental organisation, Fairaction International donated a multi-million solar-powered water station to their community.

To reduce deaths occasioned by waterborne diseases especially Cholera and typhoid which record 95,000 and 117,000 deaths respectively each year, Fairaction International said it deemed it fit to embark on the water project.

At the commissioning ceremony of the project which was well-attended, Mr Oluwasola Adeoti, who spoke on behalf of the Sponsor of the multi-million naira project, Mr Samuel Adeoti, who is based in Australia said the unpleasant experience of water shortage his brother had in his younger days in Nigeria sparked the urge in him to prevent others from going through the same suffering.

Flanked by Sunday Afolabi, Sunday Durojaye, Olayinka, Adekola Olaoniyonu and Tosin Kayode amongst other members of the team, the leader of the team, Adeoti, added that to make life easier for people growing up, “that’s why Fairaction International was birthed.

“We go into communities that suffer water supply and according to mission 2030 of the United Nations. We intend to replicate this all over the country so we are just piloting this in Ibadan.It costs so much. You can see we have solar panels, solar batteries, hybrid inverter that powers the whole station and water treatment plant. We have done this same project at Abeku, Isale Oja, Ijaye and now Alabata.”

Adekola Olaoniyonu and Sunday Afolabi who are also members of Fairaction International noted, “Anytime we see a community in need of water, we do a survey and after sinking the borehole, we take the water to the laboratory for examination.

Afolabi recalled, “in the olden days, we used to drink water from streams which were polluted. Most of us swallow tadpoles while drinking which causes diseases. This water is better and cleaner than pure water.”

“The money that will be charged is N100 per 50kg litre of water. But for now, the management of Fairaction said we should give it free for one month.

After that one month, we start charging a token.

Adeoti continued saying, “This community and the other two communities are rated as water poor. That informed our decision to consider this community.”

“At Ijaye, people don’t believe in paying for water. It’s not good enough but we are not going to be tired. We intend to make sure that this kind of project can sustain itself. To be able to do that is for the project to be monitored. At the end of the month, the money realized will be used for maintenance. We will go back to Ijaye for maintenance of the project. We don’t just initiate a project and leave it for them. We have done other projects; We’ll make sure that the projects we do are sustainable”.

“We are supposed to start another one at Aponmode tomorrow but we have decided against that because we want to review our mapping system. The mapping we did before appears not to be thorough enough; we have discovered that people suffer water poverty”.

“This project being commissioned is just a starting point; we still have a lot to do.
He quoted UNICEF that they rated this Alabata Community as being water poor. “You know you may be rated water-poor but in your mind, you don’t think so. We want to review our mapping system before we move to another community”.

Alhaji Rasak Oloyede Balogun who represented the Community Leader of Alabata, Alhaji Yinusa Balogun could not hide his joy over the project.

Describing the water project as the first of its kind since the creation of Alabata over a hundred years ago, Alhaji Balogun said,”Before the advent of this water project, we were drinking impure well water. So, all residents of Alabata are very grateful for this. To our amazement, they are charging as low as N50. I asked them how would they make a profit from this? They said it wasn’t set up for profit making but in the interest of the Alabata residents.” “They also said if it develops a fault, there’s no way the small amount that will be made from there can foot the bill for its repair but they will add to it.”

A resident of Alabata, Salaudeen Abdulgafar who has been resident in the village for seven years stressed that they know how costly sinking a borehole could be and promised the project would be well managed.