By Emmanuel Ayungbe

IDUA—ASSANG- RESIDENTS of Idua-Assang community, Oron Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, said that in the last forty years, they  drank water from a government pipe borne water facility provided for them.

The village head, HRH Chief Iniko Asukwo Offiong, who disclosed this to NDV, said the state Water Board in Oron stopped functioning 40 years ago and the villagers, and the community’s stream, which was the major source of water to the people was consequently despoiled and degraded by human activities.

Chief Effiong lamented that the state government had neglected the people of Oron local government in spite of its contribution to internally generated revenue to the state, saying: “The only state government presence in the area, which is the water board tower, has never produced water for 40 years now. The last time we tasted pipe borne water was in the late 70s causing our people to resort to untreated borehole water.”

Strange ailment: The village head bemoaned that in recent times, the death rate in Oron was alarmingly high, as the people rely on unhygienic water from untreated boreholes, adding: “Before now, we use to drink water from the stream, which was natural.

Then people hardly fell sick, but when the state government brought in water board with a promise to give us treated water, we abandoned the streams not knowing that it was mere deceit, today, we are dying in our numbers from very strange illness.”

The traditional ruler asserted that that on sighting water board taps rushing; the traditional stream was abandoned and degraded by human activities like road construction and other forms of development, only for the taps to dry up few years after commissioning.

He noted with pains: “After the water board taps went dry and the stream destroyed, we now rely on sachet water, which is not treated and very dangerous to the body. Before now, there was nothing like malaria or any kind of strange sickness, today, people dig borehole from one place to another, even from one of their relation’s grave to another just to get water and make money because in Oron, they know we are surrounded with water, yet none to drink.”