Residents of Tudun Wus, in Dass Local Government Area of Bauchi State, on Friday called on the state government and relevant authorities to deliver the community from acute water scarcity.
The leader of the community, Mr. Babaji Jibrin, told newsmen in Dass that the entire community was being served with just a solar borehole.
Jibrin said that though there were nine hand boreholes in the community initially, but they had stopped working for over a year now.
“We have only one functional solar borehole serving the whole community. The other nine hand boreholes have stopped working for almost a year now.
“Most of us do line up to fetch water around midnight to 1a.m, others fetch around 4 a.m in the morning, and hundreds troop to fetch the water during the day.
“I have seen some households spending two days without cooking meal due to lack of water.
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“We are calling on the government and relevant stakeholders to rescue us from this water scarcity,’’ the community leader appealed.
Another resident, Mr. Nazi Yari, said that men and women, including children in the community, usually forsake other duties in search of water on a daily basis.
“The water scarcity in our community is as a result of irregular tap water supply, and most houses do not have wells.
“The only solar borehole we have cannot serve the population of the people living in the community,’’ Yari said.
When contacted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Ibrahim Bello, an official of the state Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), said that the development was new to him.
Bello, who is the RUWASSA, Assistant General Manager, Mobilisation and Communication, insisted that the agency was yet to receive any complaint from the community.
“For them to say they have nine hand boreholes that are not working, to me, I think there is something fishy.
“This is because if it was true, they would have reported it. It is new to me, but we will definitely carry out a fact-finding inspection very soon and swift action will be taken,” Bello said. (NAN)
