Residents of Kodayi Community in the New Karu area of Nasarawa are recounting the predicament they go through as a result of lack of drinking water.
The community that is about 50 kilometers away from Abuja; the capital city of Nigeria, with over 500 inhabitants disclose that they drink from contaminated dirty water from a pond, they, however, narrated how the dirty water has led to many of the residents contracting illness that have led to their death.
Worse still, the Nasarawa state government in the year 2020 budgeted the sum of N108.4 billion. An amount the state government said was meant to take care of critical developmental projects that have a direct impact on the lives of the people.
This is even as the Nasarawa state government in 2021 budgeted the sum of N115.72 billion for its annual appropriation. The breakdown shows N392.120 million was allocated to the state ministry of water resources and water board N51.110 million.
Mr. Tanko Garta, the community chief, while speaking to MAWA Foundation, recounting how residents are dying as a result of illness gotten from drinking contaminated water, appealed to the government to give them water.
“We drink from dirty contaminated water, we have no other source of water than to drink the contaminated water,” Tanko Garta said.
Community residents while speaking to MAWA Foundation, said they do not only suffer from an absence of drinking water but disclosed that there is no school and hospital in the area.
A community resident narrated how Mrs. Robo Kupi died of bleeding after she put to bed because there was no hospital to provide healthcare and save her life.