Residents in Lagos communities, including Ikorodu and Alapere, are grappling with a deepening water crisis, where the inconsistent delivery of public utilities has created a frustrating double dependency: water supply is now entirely contingent on reliable electricity.
Findings reported today by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) confirm that the scarcity is a direct consequence of both the poor performance of the Lagos Water Corporation (LWC) and chronic power outages, which cripple the systems residents have put in place to compensate for the failing public infrastructure.
Interviews with residents revealed that, due to the non-existent or unreliable LWC network, most households now rely on private boreholes and electric pumps to fill their storage tanks.
Resident Testimony (Ikorodu): “The only threat to my water supply is when the electricity distributing company doesn’t bring light and my tank finishes,” noted a resident, Mr. John Taiwo. “I rely on electric pumping for all household water use.”
This reliance means that frequent and prolonged power outages instantly translate into water scarcity, forcing market vendors and households to resort to buying expensive sachet or bottled water, placing an immense economic strain on low-income earners.
The crisis is rooted in decades of systemic neglect of the state’s water infrastructure. Experts point out that the LWC’s installed capacity of less than 210 million gallons per day falls drastically short of the city’s estimated daily demand of over 650 million gallons. Much of the existing network, including key transmission mains, is over a century old and plagued by massive leakages, leading to vast amounts of unaccounted-for water.
The challenges persist despite recent investments, and the continuous failure to bridge the supply-demand gap compels the vast majority of Lagosians to seek water from expensive and often unsanitary informal sources, raising serious public health concerns across the metropolis.
