NEWS How six Gombe villages rely on pond water for survival
Six villages in Kwami Local Government Area of Gombe State have appealed to the state government to urgently provide them with potable drinking water.
They said for five years they been using water from an artificially dug pond for their daily domestic use.
The villages, Roddo Bappah, Roddo Sadu, Roddo Kangiwa, Roddo Jauro Jingi, Roddo Disa and Roddo Jauro Hamidu are just five kilometers from Kwami town, the headquarters of the council.
They have an estimated population of 3,000 people.
North East Trust correspondent, who visited the pond reports the villagpond as the only source of water for their daily activities.
A village head of Roddo Bappah, Malam Bappah Roddo said people of the six villages have been battling for years to get alternative source of clean water but all their effort ended in vain, despite several appeals to authorities at the local government headquarters.
According to him the pond was dug by a construction company after they excavated sand from the area during the re-construction of the Gombe-Dukku road 17 years ago.
He said the pond usually dried up at the end of rainy season, forcing them to move to a local hand dug well in a neighbouring village, Jabla.
“Because of the large number of people who rely on that well at Jabla, sometimes we have to wait for about 24 hours before we could fetch water,” Jauro Bappah said.
Malam Bappah said the six village heads had once collectively complained to the Chairman of Kwami council, Alhaji Hassan Ya’u Hassan Marafa about their situation but they were yet to get any response.
Our correspondent reports that inorder to safeguard the water from being polluted by animals, members of the communities are taxed monthly to pay for two watchmen engaged to keep animals away from the water.
Some youths who spoke with North East Trust expressed their dismay over the failure of the government to provide them with clean source of drinking water.
“We have been battling with our representatives both at the local, state and national levels to provide us with, at least a borehole, but for years all we get are empty promises,” a resident of Roddo Bappah said.
When this reporter visited Jabla village where the only well that provide water to the villages located, resident of the village Isma’il Jibrin said the well, dug by his father more than 27 years ago, was at the verge of drying up.
Jibrin therefore appealed to politicians and other philanthropists to look into their plight and provide them with an alternative source of water.
However, the state Commissioner of Water Resources, Alhaji Mohammed Dan’Azumi Adamu, had at a news briefing, said a memo was approved for the expansion of the Gombe Regional Water Scheme to improve water supply to Kwami LGA.
He said the state executive council has discussed and approved the construction of Gombe Township Water Supply augmentation scheme at Bolari, Herwagana and the improvement of the Kwami, Gadam and Bojude water scheme, to serve communities in the three towns.