Oba Festus Olumoyegun, the monarch of Iju-Odo Community in Ondo State’s Okitipupa Local Government Area, and some traditional chiefs from neighboring communities have requested the government at all levels to provide potable water in their areas.
The traditional ruler noted that a lack of proper water and sanitation was also a key source of other diseases such as typhoid and cholera, emphasizing the need of stakeholders assisting the community with access to drinkable water.
The call was made by Oba Olumoyegun and traditional chiefs at the official opening of a borehole project for primary health care centers and public schools in the Iju Ondo and Ilu-titun-Osooro communities on Thursday.
HACEY Health Initiative, a non-governmental organization, donated the boreholes to the communities. The projects were located in the affected communities’ five primary schools and five primary health care centers.
The monarch, who was represented by the Oniogbe of Monogbe, town, Chief Omodele Adebayo, bemoaned the communities’ reliance on streams for drinking and domestic use, describing the practice as unsafe.
“The cost of sachet water in this community rises from N10 to N20 and most of our people cannot afford the sachet water at that price. We are always worried about what the situation may lead to.
“The primary health care centre here and most part of the community has been suffering, but thank God for this intervention because this will pave way for our people to come here and get portable water.
“The government has been doing well but key stakeholders across different sectors should increase investment in water, sanitation and hygiene for women and children especially those in rural and underserved communities as this, I believe this will go a long way in achieving a healthy and productive society.
“No doubt, Iju-Odo has portable water challenge. Most of our people do go to the stream to fetch water, but with this, we can smile a bit and I want to assure this NGO that we will make proper use of this project. I am appealing to all sons and daughters of this community to fast track this kind of project.”
In his remarks, the Executive Director, HACEY Initiative, Rhoda Robinson said the initiative was aimed at improving access to safe water for communities, health workers and pregnant women.
Represented by the Programme Manager of the organisation, Chioma Osakwe, the director said the clean water initiative came after it had been discovered that most communities were not having access to portable water.
She said, “You go to most communities and you see that they have access to water but not portable water. You see a situation where you see high incidences of water-borne diseases, diarrhoea, children under the age of five years dying from direct diseases, this is not supposed to be in this century and time.
“We work with the ministry of education and health because this project is for public schools and health centres. So, we reach out to the ministries and they recommended what communities to work with and I must confess that the process has been seamless.
“This project has been running since 2017 and so far, we’ve been able to provide access to portable water in 90 communities across Nigeria. This year, the project was for 10 communities. We did four here in Ondo state, comprising of Okitipupa and Irele LGAs.”