Mr Michael Ale, President, Association of Waterwell Drilling Rig Owners And Practitioners (AWDROP), has advocated provision of potable water for rural vulnerable communities to curtail COVID-19 pandemic.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ale is a consultant on water to many international organisations and coordinator of several collaborative projects on water.
“Many rural and peri-urban areas are serviced either with the water from the stream or wells that are contaminated and sometime with on-site off grid mechanical generator powered or hand pumps.
“The main instruction from the WHO is to wash hands in the running taps without touching taps for hygiene purpose.
“But, where is the running taps, especially in the village, where many children have to daily visit a hand pump facility and take a stroke by touching the handle before water can be made available for their house chores,” he said.
Ale said that the stay-at-home order could only be effective in Nigeria with provision of pipe borne water as in developed country.
According to him, many houses in the rural areas are running out of water. Who is their mouth piece?
“They can’t air their view to the government, that’s why you cannot get any related views on scarcity or non availability of water during this pandemic,” he said.
The AWDROP president explained that government at all levels should as a matter of urgency embark on massive drilling of boreholes, saying it was a quick win to solving the pandemic.
Ale noted that provision of what was a major preventive campaign strategy against the spread of COVID-19.
“The Federal Government in some of its ongoing awareness campaigns and jingles has been advocating and advising people to always wash their hands in running water, but the question is how many of such facility is on the ground? “
“Even some of the advocates and political office holders who had been at the forefront of this campaign are also seen washing their hands in water basin contrary to what they had been preaching to their followers.
“This is not right, it exposes the weakness of the leaders in providing adequate infrastructure to the common man,” he said.
Ale said that the association was ready to collaborate with relevant government, political office holders as well as Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to ensure potable water was adequately provided in rural communities
The AWDROP president emphasised the importance of water to human lives, especially at this period when people are striving to secure lives, forgetting that water is life.
Ale added that potable water is always one of the measures taken across the world to also curb community spread of COVID -19.
“COVID-19 is now in its next phase of the spread and this can only be subdued with adequate provision of potable water, but the strategy must be adaptive.
“Water, Sanitation and Hygeine experts across the world have advocated for on-site sanitation and environmental hygiene in the rural communities because of the need to get water from the public boreholes,” he said.
Ale advised the Federal Government to provide water in schools, hospitals, markets, motor parks, religious centres and other public places.
The AWDROP boss said that such gesture would help in post covid-19 sustenance.
He reiterated that government has the capacity to do more with less by subsidising borehole cost for Nigerians through their Agro-Rural Water Supply Support Initiative (ARUWASSI).
He expressed satisfaction with the current capacity of the association to provide such assistance through FMARD, adding more rigs had been procured to manage the current situation.
