Lagos, Nigeria is surrounded by an abundance of water, yet millions of inhabitants in Africa’s most populous city can’t drink it.
The coastal city that’s bordered by a lagoon is in the throes of a water crisis. Only 1 in 10 people have access to water that the state utility provides. The rest — some 19 million residents — rely on informal water sources, either drilling their own boreholes to drink from or fetching water from lakes or rivers. Those that can afford it pay exorbitant amounts to local “mai ruwa,” or water vendors, who peddle their wares in often-unsanitary jerry cans, or bottles and cellophane sachets.
However, the Lagos House of Assembly passed legislation last month that could threaten even this last-resort source of drinking water — a critical lifeline for most Lagosians.
Opponents of the Lagos Environment Bill say politicians did not follow due legislative process before it was signed into law on March 1 ― and its final language has still not been made available to the public two weeks after the fact. It could criminalize the private extraction of water, including the drilling of boreholes and purchasing water from private sellers, activists warn.
“One of our rights as citizens is to live, to have good water to drink, good environment,” said Agnes Sessi, president of the African Women Water, Hygiene and Sanitation Network, this month in reaction to the new law. “If government has failed to provide water for us, they do not have the right to take away our efforts to provide for ourselves. Do they want us to die?”
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