Opinion

Abuja’s water crisis is not coming. It is already here

Published

5 months ago

April 13, 2026

Chigozin Obinna

Abuja Water Crisis intensifies as experts warn pollution around Mpape threatens Lower Usuma Dam and safe water supply for the capital

By Sheriff Balogun

There is a dangerous illusion at the heart of Nigeria’s capital. From the polished streets of Maitama to the diplomatic calm of Asokoro, Abuja presents itself as a city that works.

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But upstream, quite literally, the foundations of that order are being eroded. And not in secret. In full view of the authorities responsible for preventing it.

Mpape, the city’s largest informal settlement, sits above the Lower Usuma Dam, the primary source of drinking water for the Federal Capital Territory.

Every rainfall carries waste, sewage and sediment downhill into that reservoir. This is not speculation.

It is documented reality. What is harder to explain is why it has been allowed to persist for decades.

The most troubling aspect of this crisis is not the contamination itself. It is the normalisation of it.

Officials have acknowledged the threat. Scientific studies have confirmed declining water quality.

Reports have described medical waste and household refuse sitting in pathways that lead directly into the dam.

Yet governance response has remained slow, fragmented and largely reactive.

The implication is stark. Abuja is attempting to purify water that is being consistently polluted at its source. That is not a sustainable system. It is an expensive illusion.

Even the numbers tell a story of strain. The Lower Usuma system was designed to deliver far more water than it currently produces.

Treatment plants operate at less than half capacity, partly because the raw water arriving at those facilities is increasingly difficult and costly to treat.

At the same time, the city’s population continues to surge, far outpacing the assumptions that guided its original design.

This mismatch between planning and reality is not unique to Abuja, but the consequences here are particularly severe. WaterAid estimates that only a small fraction of residents have access to safe tap water.

Many rely on rivers, streams or private boreholes. The latter may offer short-term relief for middle-income households, but they introduce another long-term risk: unchecked groundwater depletion.

For poorer communities, including those living around Mpape itself, there is no fallback.

Contaminated water translates directly into disease, lost income and avoidable deaths.

Cholera and typhoid are not abstract risks. They are recurring outcomes of policy failure.

And yet, policy continues to focus disproportionately on treatment rather than prevention.

Billions of naira have been committed to rehabilitating treatment plants and expanding infrastructure.

These are necessary investments, but they do not address the core issue.

A more efficient treatment plant cannot compensate indefinitely for a polluted catchment.

Filtering dirty water more effectively is not the same as protecting clean water at its source.

The events of January 2026, when water supply disruptions were linked to unpaid electricity bills, exposed another layer of fragility.

A capital city whose water system can be partially crippled by power disconnection is operating on borrowed time.

The reliance on diesel generators to sustain critical infrastructure is both costly and unsustainable.

What emerges is a pattern of governance that reacts to symptoms while neglecting causes. Mpape itself illustrates this clearly.

For years, the dominant policy instinct has been demolition. But demolition without resettlement is not a solution.

It merely displaces the problem or pauses it temporarily. The persistence of Mpape is not evidence of defiance alone.

It is evidence of unmet housing needs and unresolved historical grievances dating back to the creation of the FCT.

If Abuja is to secure its water future, it must abandon the illusion that this problem can be engineered away downstream. The solution begins upstream, with governance.

That means treating Mpape not as an anomaly to be erased, but as a community to be integrated into the city’s planning framework.

Basic sanitation infrastructure, waste management systems and drainage control are not luxuries. In this context, they are essential components of water security.

It also means enforcing environmental protections within the dam’s catchment area.

Buffer zones, erosion control and restrictions on high-risk activities such as unregulated farming are standard practices in cities that take their water sources seriously. Abuja cannot claim to be an exception.

Equally important is institutional coordination. The agencies that oversee water, urban development and environmental protection must operate with a shared mandate, not in silos.

The current fragmentation allows responsibility to diffuse, and with it, accountability.

Finally, there is the question of political will. The scale of investment already committed to water infrastructure demonstrates that resources can be mobilised when priorities are clear.

The challenge is to redirect part of that focus toward prevention, where the returns are higher and the long-term costs significantly lower.

Abuja was conceived as a symbol of national unity and modern planning.

But no city can sustain that promise without something more fundamental than architecture or administration. It needs reliable, safe water.

Right now, that foundation is under threat from a problem that is neither hidden nor inevitable. It is the result of choices, and of inaction.

The water crisis in Abuja will not announce itself dramatically when it becomes irreversible.

It will deepen gradually, quietly, until the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of having prevented it.

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That threshold is approaching. The only question is whether those in authority will act before it is crossed.

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Opinion

Rotary hails IPDG Lanre Adedoyin polio drive

Published

2 days ago

September 14, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Victor Ojelabi,

The Rotary Foundation has recognised the polio eradication efforts of Rotary International District 9112 under Immediate Past District Governor Lanre Adedoyin, following the District’s transfer of District Designated Funds to the PolioPlus Fund during the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year, a contribution acknowledged recently, as part of the global funding effort to protect children from the disease.

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The recognition brings a fitting international dimension to a Rotary year in which Adedoyin, a lawyer and member of the Rotary Club of Surulere South, repeatedly placed polio eradication among District 9112’s major humanitarian priorities across Lagos and Ogun states.

In a message addressed to District 9112, The Rotary Foundation thanked the District for committing its District Designated Funds to the campaign, saying the collective support from Rotary districts helped the organisation reach its fundraising target and secure matching funds that translate into US$150 million for polio eradication.

“Your support helped Rotary reach our goal and secure the matching funds that translate into US$150 million toward eradicating polio,” the Foundation said.

The money has consequences far beyond the balance sheet.

According to the Foundation, polio funding supports frontline workers taking vaccines into remote communities, environmental surveillance capable of detecting the virus in wastewater and programmes designed to interrupt transmission in affected areas.

The Foundation said the continuing effort was particularly important in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only two countries where wild poliovirus remains endemic.

That assessment is consistent with Rotary International’s latest account of the global campaign.

Rotary says its partnership with the Gates Foundation generates up to US$150 million annually for polio eradication, with Rotary raising US$50 million and the Foundation providing a two-to-one match.

The money supports vaccine procurement, social mobilisation, outbreak response, surveillance and other operational requirements.

Rotary’s involvement stretches back decades. Its first polio vaccination project began in the Philippines in 1979, and the organisation became a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. Since then, global polio cases have fallen by 99.9 per cent.

For Nigeria, the story carries particular resonance.

The country recorded its last case of wild poliovirus in Borno State in August 2016.

Four years later, the World Health Organisation African Region was formally certified free of wild poliovirus, leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan as the remaining countries with endemic transmission.

That historic achievement, however, did not mean the end of the polio challenge in Nigeria.

Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus can still emerge in communities with low immunisation coverage, making vaccination and surveillance essential even in countries that have eliminated wild poliovirus.

IPDG Lanre Adedoyin with wife at a Rotary event recently

It was against that backdrop that the IPDG’s polio drive developed during the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year.

Adedoyin, who became the second District Governor of District 9112 following the division of the former District 9110, had signalled early in his tenure that healthcare would remain a central part of the District’s service programme.

His installation in Lagos in July 2025 marked the beginning of a year that subsequently combined fundraising with grassroots advocacy and support for health workers.

By September 2025, the District had held a PolioPlus seminar at which Adedoyin warned against complacency simply because wild poliovirus had disappeared from Nigeria. District records show that the campaign remained prominent in its programme in the months that followed.

In October, Districts 9111 and 9112 took the End Polio Now message beyond conventional conference halls with a joint train journey from Lagos to Abeokuta.

Led by Adedoyin and then District 9111 Governor Henry Akinyele, alongside Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee Chairman Joshua Hassan and other Rotary leaders, the initiative turned the train journey into a public awareness campaign for polio eradication.

District 9112 also took the message to communities in Ogun State, including a roughly 10-kilometre Keep Polio @ Zero awareness walk in Sagamu aimed particularly at encouraging parents and guardians to ensure that children receive their vaccinations.

In Lagos, the campaign moved from advocacy to practical support.

District 9112 donated 100 pairs of rain boots and 200 raincoats to the Lagos State Primary Health Care Board in October 2025 to assist health personnel working on polio eradication during the rainy season. The intervention was valued at about ₦1.6 million.

Adedoyin made the District’s position clear at the presentation.

“Our commitment to ending polio is absolute,” Adedoyin said. “We will continue working with the Lagos State Government and our partners until polio is completely wiped out.”

Another significant moment came towards the end of his tenure.

In June 2026, District 9112 announced that it had raised US$13,000 through the World’s Greatest Meal initiative for The Rotary Foundation’s PolioPlus Fund.

The contribution was described by World’s Greatest Meal Committee Chairman Tokunbo Opanubi as one of the highest recorded by the District through the initiative.

The US$13,000 contribution is separate from the District Designated Funds now acknowledged by The Rotary Foundation.

Together, however, the initiatives illustrate the different channels through which District 9112 supported the global eradication campaign during Adedoyin’s tenure.

District Designated Funds form part of The Rotary Foundation’s funding system and allow Rotary districts to direct portions of available Foundation resources towards eligible programmes.

PolioPlus is one of the avenues through which districts can deploy such resources in support of Rotary’s eradication objective.

The Foundation’s latest acknowledgement therefore adds another layer to District 9112’s polio record for the 2025 to 2026 year.

It also demonstrates the multiplier effect behind Rotary’s funding model.

A contribution originating from clubs and districts can ultimately support a much larger global pool used for vaccines, surveillance, community mobilisation and the difficult task of reaching children in areas affected by conflict, insecurity or geographical isolation.

The stakes remain considerable.

Polio is a potentially fatal infectious disease that primarily affects young children and can invade the nervous system, causing irreversible paralysis.

Although its global footprint has been reduced dramatically, Rotary cautions that eradication requires sustained vaccination and surveillance until transmission has been stopped everywhere.

The Foundation’s message to District 9112 captured that unfinished mission.

It thanked the District for supporting the PolioPlus Fund and helping move the world closer to the point where “no child is threatened by this disease ever again”.

For Adedoyin, who handed over the governorship of District 9112 at the end of the 2025 to 2026 Rotary year, the recognition offers a powerful postscript to a year in which the District’s contribution was measured not only in fundraising figures, but also in public advocacy, community mobilisation and support for those working closest to vulnerable children.

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And for District 9112, the acknowledgement connects a local Rotary story from Lagos and Ogun states to a much larger global ambition: ensuring that the final cases of polio become part of history rather than the beginning of another outbreak.