Napoleon Adah is the acting General Manager of the Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), which has been walking the talk on the issue of safe drinking water for the people of the State.

From emplacing infrastructure critical to making available clean and potable water across communities to implementing policies that regulate the industry thus safeguarding the consumers, RUWASSA has continued to scale up the capacity of the State to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6).

In this interview with Kristina Reports Correspondent, Confidence Biebara, on the sidelines of a WASH Conference organised by World Health Organisation (WHO) in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr. Adah outlines the milestones achieved by the State Government through RUWASSA, issues plaguing the sector, and suggested the way forward. Read along.

Kristina Reports: A research was conducted in some states and the result is that most states, especially the villages in these states do not have access to portable drinking water, what is your administration doing to provide water to these areas?

Napoleon Adah: As an agency under the Ministry of Water Resources and Rural Development in the State, we have been doing a lot as regards water sanitation and hygiene. I must tell you that we have done some projects in rural communities as regards to water, sanitation and hygiene, mostly in the area of hygiene promotion. Basically, watch prevention, as we all know that prevention is better than cure. We have done some kind of sensitization advocacy in various communities and local governments in Rivers State.

There is another component we have in Nigeria that is targeted towards eradicating open defecation (ODF). But before now, we have collaborated with EU and UNICEF under the NDSP programme to carry out projects in two LGAs, namely, Opobo/Nkoro and Akuku-Toru Local Government Areas and other interventions from the Ministry of Water Resources during the COVID 19 pandemic. We are going to provide water in some local governments in Rivers State I have mentioned. So, we will be doing something to meet the target of SDG-6 as being propagated in the country.

Do you think by 2030, you are going at achieve at least 80% of these goals?

God being on our side, and with the political will to fight this menace head-on, I believe that we can achieve that because most of these things we are talking about here needs funds to be able to work out. If funds and adequate environments are provided, I don’t see why we should not achieve the desired results come 2025. Like in the area of open defecation, by 2025, we are hoping that Nigeria will have eradicated open defecation. We are aware that the former president, president Buhari signed a bill in regards to open defecation so we are doing all these and we know we will do more. But I want to encourage or call on various state governments, local governments, multinational corporations, individuals and other agencies to see how we can fast-track this, through funding because if there is adequate fund all these things can be done seamlessly without hitch.

In the course of my research, I got to meet the Hygienic Water Producers Association of Nigeria and they have been clamouring for support from the government. According to them, some villages, villages where you need to use boats to move around, they are unable to get to these villages and they are asking for collaboration. Have you considered collaborating with them?

In Rivers state, we have been meeting with them, there are two associations and we have met with both of them and modalities are being worked out to make sure that the difficulties are alleviated and to make sure they are able to reach “hard to reach areas”. We are doing something in that direction.

They mentioned that they have been battling with quacks, what policies have been put in place to curtail the emergence of quacks?

Like I mentioned earlier we are working with them and it is only the Lagos state government that has a water law that can monitor how water is produced for now. But we have been meeting with the water producers of Nigeria, we have organized workshops and training for them in this regard. I believe that if we can sustain the collaboration and meetings with them, we will chase away quacks that have taken over the business of water production for consumption.