By EMEKA OZUMBA
IT is cheering and reassuring that the Omasi-uno water scheme, which had been abandoned for over twenty years, has been rehabilitated and expanded by the First Lady of Anambra State, Mrs. Ebelechukwu Obiano. The project, which was executed by her NGO, Caring Family Enhancement Initiative (CAFÉ), has fulfilled the yearnings of the Omasi-uno community in Ayamelum Local Government Area of Anambra State, for potable water.
The project, which was commissioned on June 15, with pomp and ceremony orchestrated by the indigenes of the community, marked a fitting end to the long wait for potable drinking water in the agrarian community. In a carnival-like procession, the Omasi-uno people trooped out in large numbers, sang and danced joyfully to welcome the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano and his wife, Ebelechukwu, on that fateful day.
It will be recalled that the First Lady embarked on the project soon after a fact-finding visit to the community in March this year where she met women with babies strapped on their backs bending over to scoop water from a pit. She might have been touched by the women’s endless search for drinking water from unhygienic source. The women’s plight was worsened by the fact that the only source of water in the community for over two decades is a broken borehole from, which water runs in trickles to the reticulation pit.
Moreover, the villagers had adopted a unique system in the face of dire water challenge by allotting daily turns to households to fetch water from the pit to ensure that the droplets of scarce drinking water in the dugout gets across to many. In fact, at the height of the water problem, the community reportedly lost over two hundred children to gastroenteritis epidemic in early 2014.
It was, therefore, the mounting water challenges faced by the villagers, especially women, that probably provoked Mrs. Obiano to resolve to assist Omasi-uno community with four boreholes under the CAFÉ Borehole projects. In keeping with her words, Mrs. Obiano dispatched a hydrologist to scope the area to ensure that such a project was feasible. However the initial assessment indicated that the terrain would be a drilling nightmare for hydrologists who would have to go to a depth of over 20,000 feet with remote chances of finding potable drinking water not to mention the millions of Naira that would go down the drain. Hence, Omasi-uno topography was adjudged not amenable to borehole water drilling.
But further probe by the engineers revealed that the broken source of water came from an artesian well formation from a rock beneath Omasi-uno, which was years ago channeled to supply water to the community. Thus Mrs. Obiano’s CAFÉ resorted to the Option B – to properly harness the artesian water from source; rehabilitate, upgrade and expand the water into a scheme that would serve the community from multiple sources. Good enough, the option turned out a good omen for both the community and the sponsors.
During the commissioning of the water scheme, Governor Obiano confirmed that Omasi-Uno community had been neglected for over 20 years but is now getting relief following the intervention of CAFE which stepped in to check the incidence of high child mortality rate in the area by rehabilitating, upgrading and expanding the water scheme to the delight of the indigenes and encouragement of his administration. The governor also observed that what was remarkable about the water project was that CAFÉ had been able to assist the needy with donations from philanthropists who made it possible for them to be touching many lives for good.
He also promised that the access road leading to the town would be rehabilitated to enable the farmers transport their agricultural products to the markets. In addition, Obiano informed the people that the government is expanding the rural electrification programme in Ayamelum Local Government Area, which is expected to be completed in six months and called on them to protect the projects.
Apparently buoyed by the joyous mood amongst the people of Omasi-uno, which was a far cry from the setting when she last visited, a visibly excited Mrs. Obiano told Omasi-uno people that she felt fulfilled to have brought joy to the community by getting her, NGO, CAFÉ to support the efforts of Anambra State government through the successful rehabilitation of the community water scheme which had been abandoned for many years.
She said that CAFÉ’s search for a solution was borne out of the pathetic acute water scarcity in Omasi-uno which had brought untold health hazards to the community over the years. The governor’s wife expressed surprise that the people were surviving with little or no water all these years. In the course of her intervention, the experts found a better alternative, which has indeed yielded more fetching points across the community than boreholes would have done.
The First Lady also thanked CAFÉ donors within and outside Anambra State for their kind support and encouragement of the work of her NGO. She also explained that the donors are the ones who make such life-saving interventions possible as a way of ameliorating the sufferings of the less-privileged and supporting the delivery of good governance by the government.
The people of Omasi-uno, who were grateful for the rehabilitation of the water scheme, lauded Mrs. Obiano for the good gesture.
n Ozumba writes from Awka, Anambra State