What Nigerians do to get drinking water

Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday July 7, 2014 at 11:14:25:

The benefits of a good drinking water can not be over emphasized, water is so important to the body that the body can only good few days without drinking water after which death can occur as a result of dehydration. In Nigeria though there is easy access to drinking water in majority of the states, but there are still some interior villages that find it very difficult to have access to clean drinking water. In this article, I will discuss some of things Nigerians do to get drinking water.

The first thing Nigerians do to get drinking water is that they sink boreholes to get water. Borehole system draws water from the ground using a machine called sumo, and the water is passed through a pipe, stored in a tank and fetched through a tap. Many Nigerians depend on borehole to get their drinking water.

Secondly, they fetch spring water. Spring is considered the cleanest source of water as the water comes from a rock. Many sachet water and bottle water companies’ source for their water from a spring. One good thing about a spring apart from the fact that the water is clean is that, it runs all year long. Spring water is not available to most Nigerians and is only located in few places across the country.

A third source from which Nigerians get drinking water is by buying packaged water. Packaged water is normally sold in the market by retailers and these normally come either packaged in plastic bottles or transparent nylon satchets. A bag of satchet water a.k.a. pure water would be ok for a family of 4 for about 3 days and this is about 1000 cl of water.

A fourth way through which they get drinking water is by boiling water. This water could come from different sources such as pump or rain. The water is not normally bacteria free and needs to be sterilized and Nigerians know that boiling it can make it safe to drink. So they boil it and then bottle it for later drinking.

A fifth source from which Nigerians get drinking water is from the rain. Rain water is said to be one of the purest form of natural water but it is mostly collected after falling on the roofs of people and so this is later sterilized by boiling it before drinking it.

A 6th way through whihc Nigerians get drinking water is from pipe borne water which is normally supplied by the government. It is not always clean and safe for immediate drinking and so Nigerians still have to boil it first.

Finally, for those in villages and rural areas with no access to spring water, they go to streams to get their drinking water. Most of the villages in Nigeria have a stream where villagers can fetch water for drinking and other household chores, and for drinking water, they set aside a part of the river just for collecting drinking water