‘Scarcity of water looms in Nigeria’


The Association of Water well Drilling Rig Owners and Practitioners (AWDROP) on Sunday raised alarm of looming scarcity of portable water in Nigeria.
AWDROP Chairman in Oyo state, Engineer Yinka  Kolawole, raised the alarm while addressing a press conference at the Oyo state NUJ Press centre, Iyaganku Ibadan.    
According to the association, the activities of “illegal drillers” that now abound in the country is presently constituting major threat to water provision in the country in the next few years if not checked.


Engr Kolawole said that as at present, there are series of indiscriminate drilling of boreholes going on in the country which may soon constitute major problem to provision of water in Nigeria.


The AWDROP Chairman stated that there were some foreigners in the country who are engaging in drilling processes, contrary to the stipulated standard of 40-50 in the country by engaging in drilling of 100-200 -300 meters .
“Most of these Asian drillers left their countries to make money in Nigeria. In fact, most of them have been doing capital flight. We have gone on research on what they are doing. But the government is yet to acknowledge what we are doing, maybe because our industry is not a very loud one,” he said.


Engr Kolawole added, “Now, they have been doing indiscriminate drillings in Nigeria. Before we came in, most of the depths of drillings were about 40 metres, 50 metres and we had good water everywhere. But when they (Asian drillers) came in, they started drilling 100, 200, and 300 metres.  They have really gone into the earth core, which made us to research on them. We discovered that India is facing a major problem concerning underground water supply now because they have done the same thing they are doing to Nigeria now to India.” 


The AWDROP Chairman declared that similar indiscriminate drilling of boreholes is already resulting in drought of water in countries like India,Ethiopia and Tanzania where the illegal borehole drillers were forced out of those countries .
He then called on the government to empower the association to be able to regulate water drilling processes in and across the country, saying, “So, our advice to the government is that they should empower AWDROP under our National President, Michael Ale, to raise the benchmark for the depths that all borehole should go. 


“Right now, we have so much around and probably within the next 10 years, we will be having challenges of water because they have gone to the depths that they should not have gone into. If they don’t stop now, we will be in a big problem. You can go on Google and see what they have done to India. They have virtually stopped drilling in some parts of India because they are facing serious drought in those areas. The story is the same in Ethiopia and Tanzania”.


Engr Kolawole, was supported at the press conference  by the associatio  vice chairman, Deji Araromi; Secretary, Kehinde Olaniyi; Public Relations Officer, Oluwaseyi Ojo; and Director of Protocol and Strategic Planning, Ayo Akinyemi.

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