Uche Ogah on Water & its Reticulation
“Everyone knows that water is essential to everyday living. Infact there’s an aphorism that states that “water is life” and that’s absolutely true because if there’s a lack of water, all life forms as we know them begin to suffer, wither and die. As humans, we know the extent we are willing to go in search of clean and potable water in which case an absence of it can bring about untold diseases.
In Abia State, there’s an urgent need to create a sustainable public water works system in order to guarantee safe drinking water for our people. A state of emergency ought to be declared in the water sector within Abia State as there’s virtually no presence of the state in water supply to the people. What is obtainable in all parts of Abia State are private wells and boreholes by those who may afford it while those who cannot afford to dig either a well or borehole even in the state capital of Umuahia, the important city of Aba and in all other parts of the state, rely on sales and supply from water tankers, streams and rivers of which the water is mostly not treated which equally exposes our people to waterborne diseases.
In the quest to maintain life and optimum living, NAFDAC and the World Health Organization’s standard of water for human consumption must maintain a pH level of 6.5 – 8.5 as anything below or above that portends danger to vital body organs of which continuous consumption without remedy, renders an individual sick of waterborne diseases and causes death if treatment is not applied.
There’s need to create a viable water works system that will reticulate water to all LGAs within the state. All old water schemes will be revived, revitalized and upgraded with modern infrastructure pertaining to it so as to cover the entire state and offer our people the right kind of potable water for their optimum health and vitality.
My administration, upon resumption of office, ofcourse by the the grace of God and the will of Abians will create river dams and associated infrastructure to trap water for treatment and reticulation to the homes of our people and for farm irrigation. We will equally introduce scalable modular treatment plants and membrane treatment solutions which involves multilevel filtration processes, electrodialysis and reverse osmosis for both rural and urban areas of Abia State and all these are in the bid to ensure our people have access to the best-in-class available water for human and animal consumption.
My team and I possess requisite ideas and experience to drive this process as it concerns provision of potable water to our people of Abia State among several other projects we are keen on bringing to the complete experience of Abians even as we are ready to hit the ground running and reverse the age-long deficit which Abians have suffered in all metrics of human development.”
Dr. Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah
Abia State APC Gubernatorial Candidate 2023