By Rasheedat Abidiesin
As the day emerged like a forceful storm, Zainab Isiaka, a 300 level student of political science, wore a disturbing look. The reason which she will later narrate to this reporter. In her right hand was a bucket and the left? Akimbo. Zainab reminisced on how easy life at her hostel —80k one of UDUS students’ private residents— was just a few weeks back and how the comfort turned to a nightmare she never envisaged.
“Ever since this blackout, fetching drinkable water has become a big task,” she began.
“We will trek from our hostel to the Engineering department just to fetch water. What option do we have? There is no other means to get water in my hostel,” she continued.
She furthered that, despite fetching the water several miles away from her hostel, after some days, they were disallowed to fetch there again because of the construction work going on there.
Zainab together with her hostel mates would go from their hostels oscillating between the veterinary department and the social sciences with kegs and pail on their heads just to get water.
“And it is draining us. Even after getting the water, the water is not even clean for cooking.”
Exploitation, Threatening Compromise
“We thought heaven had shown us mercy when some male students came up with the idea of us contributing 200 hundred per room and then renting us their generator to fetch water inside our hostel,” Zainab was saying.
“We contributed the money and we were fetching in turns when a guy came and wanted to hijack the front spot, he claimed his friend is the owner of the generator. We tried to fight back and he started flinging our pails. We were trampled upon because we are females,” she continued.
“The fact that we contributed money and we were still denied the right to fetch is more painful, they favor people they know first before anything which is not supposed to be so.”
There is no water anywhere in this Benji, not even inside school or anywhere around school premises, we go to class without having our baths or we use pure water to take our baths, we can’t cook, we can’t wash. The suffering is unbearable.
Corroborating Zainab’s claims, another eyewitness, Kifayat, a 300 level student of the Fishery department, attested to all of Zainab’s complaints. In her words,
“I was asked to collect 200 hundred naira per room for them to pump water for us, which we did,” she began.
“Even after contributing money, we were giving conditioner access to fetch water, they insisted that their girlfriends fetch before us that contributed, or threaten to beat or slap us. We felt threatened and trampled upon because they feel that we are females and we don’t have strength,” Khadija furthered.
“I was the one the guy fling her pail because he said he will fetch for him and his girlfriend before anyone can fetch there.”
Water Scarcity in Nigeria
According to the world bank, women and girls suffer disproportionately from the lack of adequate WASH services. They bear the burden of water collection over long distances, which has been associated with negative effects on well-being, school attendance, and a higher risk of gender-based violence (GBV)
In 2018, Nigeria’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector was declared to be in a state of emergency by the Government. In 2019, a combination of inadequate infrastructure, a lack of required human capital, poor investment, and a deficient enabling regulatory environment – amongst other challenges – meant that approximately 60 million Nigerians were living without access to basic drinking water. 80 million people had no access to improved sanitation facilities, while 167 million couldn’t access basic handwashing facilities.
In rural areas, 39% of households lack access to at least basic water supply, while only half have access to improved sanitation and almost a third (29%) practice open defecation – a fraction that has marginally changed since 1990.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) inadequate access to enhanced water and sanitation facilities in Nigeria is contributing to the high morbidity and mortality rates among children.
How Male Danfodite Exploits, Threatens Female Student Over Water Scarcity
Sulyman Asihat Anifowose, a student of Educational management, could not believe her eyes when she witnessed the event.
“We faced a lot of challenges within these walls because there’s no water in school, and a Good Samaritan decided to help only for some guys to come and feel like they could step on us because we are females,”
“The guy threatened to slap a girl and at the sight of that I tried to tackle him. He faced me and said, “Am I the jagaban that wants to stand for them?” I stood my ground and instructed him not to insist on slapping a girl because of water. I furthered that we are all suffering for the water that we all contributed to this.”
“They were Insulting and threatening us that we won’t fetch water, this is not the first time the guy is doing this, he used to be like that when there is light. But this time around everyone is suffering from this particular problem, we can’t let it slide like that.”
Aishah furthered that their concern is that they can’t be contributing for water and still be suffering to get the water they paid for.
“The suffering is too much, the school should help us, the people in charge of private hostels should help us, we are tired of using pure water to bathe, we don’t have money,” she ended in a teary tone.
Care taker insights
In an exclusive interview with this reporter, the caretaker of 80k, Mallam Sanusi reiterated the fact that the transformer of the area has spoilt. He further expressed all efforts to repair it on the spot and the discovery that it can’t be repaired, else it was taken to the electricity distribution company.
“We went and called the truck which will help us do that. Now it’s there in their office and we are waiting to hear from them,”
“This case happened back then and it cost us One million, eight hundred thousand naira and we were given a six month guarantee, and it’s not even up to the six month now that it had gotten spoiled. So we have taken it to them and they were supposed to repair it if not today is the weekend. We have promised to even add more money to them to make the repairs as quick as possible because I am not happy seeing the way students are suffering from fetching water from afar. That’s why I didn’t even enter that 80K again. I felt pity seeing them suffer something that should be repaired in time but the NEPA is the one delaying us, they haven’t finished inspecting the damages.
One of the causes of the problem on our transformer is students who do illegal connections after we have cut down their wires due to lack of payment. Also, students use electric cookers, iron, fridge and more appliances which result in damage. We have complained several times but they refused to listen, and we can’t be going to every room to inspect because the rooms are too many (about 168 rooms). Once Nepa brings light, all these rooms use powered appliances. We just can’t handle them,” he further clarified.
I have discussed this Problem with Alhaji Isa Maisawaba and he told me that they will be testing the transformers legs and detect the problems today when he spoke with the electrician. And they reported that, the two of the ones they have tested are probably okay, they will have to check the remaining ones too and figure out the problem.They are the ones delaying us because if it’s for me, this issue would have been resolved since the very day it got spoiled.We should wait after this weekend, the light shall be restored In Sha Allah by Monday if Nepa electricians didn’t fail us. No matter the amount that it will cost, we are going to pay because there’s heat, students charge and suffer water scarcity too,” Mallam Sanusi ended.