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Jakande-Ilasan residents get borehole from philanthropist

By Tobi Awodipe
05 June 2022   |   3:14 am
The Love Water Project has donated a borehole to Ilasan Housing Estate, a community in Lekki, Lagos State to ease their water troubles.

Náómì Alabi, Founder, The Love Water Project at the borehole commissioning in Jakande-ilasan, Ajah, Lagos PHOTO: Tobi Awodipe

The Love Water Project has donated a borehole to Ilasan Housing Estate, a community in Lekki, Lagos State to ease their water troubles.

In Nigeria, one out of five deaths in children under the age of five is due to complications from unclean water, including diseases like cholera. Unsafe water can also lead to infectious diseases and the transmission of parasites. In a bid to put an end to this, The Love Water Project, a humanitarian organization that provides clean water solutions to families and communities in need founded by US based entrepreneur, Naomi Alabi, commissioned and donated a borehole to the deprived community in Lagos State during the week.

Speaking with The Guardian, Alabi said, “This borehole will provide not just water, but it would give the community especially women and children, access to clean, clear and safe water. This will create lasting community health and sustain the growth and development of the residents.”

She further said that under her “Clean Water is a Human Right” campaign, more disadvantaged communities across the 36 states of Nigeria will be identified and provided clean water. She revealed that the campaign was designed to raise awareness of communities’ rights to access to clean water, adding that clean water is the most basic thing every family and community must have.

Alabi said she has first-hand experience with scarcity of clean water while growing up in Kano and attending boarding school in Kaduna, reiterating that every community has a right to access clean water and she doesn’t want others to suffer the fate she did then. Lamenting that every year, millions of children die from diseases caused by lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene; she reiterated that other than pneumonia, diarrhea is the main cause of death of children under the age of five and one in five deaths of children under the age of five is due to complications from unclean water.

A beneficiary, Asiya Usman, a mother of three and petty trader, told The Guardian that they have been deprived of water for years and are forced to patronize local water sellers who sell at inflated prices to them. “A keg of water here goes for N120 while a bucket costs N100 and most of us here cannot afford it. So we wait for rainfall to get water for our daily use. We are always praying for rainfall so we can get water. No matter the time there is rainfall, even at 2am or 3am, I must jump out and arrange all our buckets and bowls to fetch water. This borehole is a miracle from God through Alabi.”

Another resident, Bademosi Ademola who lives opposite the bar beach market said dealers buy water from water tankers while they in turn buy in kegs from the dealers at sky-high prices. Thanking Alabi, he said the borehole would improve the quality of their lives in no small measure. Another resident, Peter Ibrahim lamented that the dealers in their area have run out of water in the last couple of days and he had to send his family members to the next community to look for water. “I’m beyond grateful to the people behind this initiative and Alabi herself because she doesn’t know ho much this means to us. She has extended a lifeline to us and we would forever be grateful,” he said.

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