Government must make clean and safe water accessible to all Safe water is a basic commodity necessary for the survival of humanity.
It also estimates that 58 per cent of that burden, or 842,000 deaths per year, are attributable to a lack of safe drinking water supply, sanitation and hygiene.
This statistic is quite disturbing and can be connected to Nigeria, where lack of access to safe water is causative of waterborne diseases including Cholera, Dysentery, Typhoid Fever, Polio, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Hepatitis A, Scabies and Dengue Fever, among others.
It is also responsible for Diarrhoea, the main killer of children under the age of five years in Nigeria, and stunting, an abnormality that hampers a child from reaching their full learning potential.
UNICEF is distraught that access to safe water constitutes a challenge for majority of Nigerians, especially those in the rural communities.
It warned that for the country of 195 million people to attain the global goal of providing access to safe water for every citizen by 2030, it needs to make water, together with sanitation and hygiene, a national priority.
To realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets by 2030, the N85 billion earmarked for the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in the 2017 budget should be fully implemented while governments at all levels should make clean and safe water accessible to all.
We are also calling for a policy guideline that will modulate the practice where virtually all Nigerian house owners dig wells and boreholes to meet water requirement.
This practice is carried out without considering the impact on the environment and the possibility of seismic shift in the earth crust that could result in earthquake.
Meanwhile, potable water and improved sanitation services are verifiable measures for fighting poverty and diseases.