Residents of Abaji metropolis and in its environs in the Abaji Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) groan as water scarcity has worsened four months after the vandalism of high tension electricity cables supplying power to the area.
Suspected cable thieves in September, 2025, vandalised high tension cables connecting Yaba-Piri to Kwali on the Abuja-Lokoja highway which led to paralysis of economic and social activities, especially access to potable water in the area.
However, our reporter who went round some streets within the metropolis recently observed that most households, especially women, woke up as early as 5am to join water queues in neighbouring houses where water is being pumped with generators.
It was observed that the worst affected areas are the Nuku community, Unguwar Ayaura Pipeline, Abaji Low-Cost, Junior/Senior Staff Quarters, Unguwar Sabon-Tasha, Unguwar Wadata, Unguwar Manko, Naharati, Unguwar Kpokpolobi and Unguwar Liman.
A resident, Mrs. Fatima Ibrahim said she wakes up as early as 5am every day to carry a basin of water on her head from a neighbour’s house at the cost of N100.
She said, “Even when I wake up as early as 5am to go and fetch water from a neighbours house, before I get there, there is usually a long queue which I have to join until it gets to my turn before I fetch.”
Another resident, Mrs. Zainab Danjuma also lamented the water problem facing residents of the area, saying she also carries a basin on her head to buy water from commercial boreholes.
She said, “Actually, my husband has a borehole, but you know how things are in this country; not everyone can afford diesel every day to pump water.”
She further said that she patronised water vendors whenever she discovered her children might go to school late, hence, she buys a truck of water at N1,200 to enable her to bathe the children and prepare them for school.
Mr.Abdullahi Mohammed, a resident of Abaji Low-Cost Housing, noted that several residents who have private boreholes find it difficult to pump water due to non- electricity supply for over four months.
He said most of the residents depend on buying water from vendors at exorbitant prices, with a truck,earlier sold for N700 now going for N1,200.
Mrs. Afiniki Barnabas, in Nuku community, said that despite a solar borehole provided by the council’s chairman, it is not enough for the entire people of the community.
She said, “In fact, even the solar borehole that I am talking about; we have to wait for water to fill the overhead tank, and before you know it, the water has finished. The next thing is for us to go down to the stream where women wait to scoop water coming out from the ground.”
Reacting, the Chief of Staff to the chairman of the council, Mohammed Kandi, who also attributed the worsening water scarcity across the metropolis to the vandalism of electricity cables, said the council had made several efforts to fix the cables.
He said the Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Umar Abdullahi, had met with the top management of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) from Gwagwalada and had concluded arrangements to fix the cables so that social and economic activities would bounce back.
▪︎Source:Daily Trust
