Nigeria today joins the world in celebrating world water day. This is even as a whopping sum of at least 2.1 billion persons around the world is on the road to finding clean and potable water. About four billion persons are left without water for a month every year.
Water being an essential building block of life, more than just a quencher of thirst and protector of health is vital for economic growth and is a major component in development.
Identifying its place in the lives of people, the United Nations in 2010 recognized “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”, and designated March 22 as World Water Day.
But nine years after, statistics from the United Nations show that for nearly at least 2.1 billion around the world, clean and potable remains a long walk.
More than 700 children under five years of age die every day from diarrhea linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation.
Over 800 women die every day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth
For the 68.5 million who have been forced to flee their homes, accessing safe water services vis highly problematic. 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030, UN gathered.
Adopting the theme “Leaving no one behind” for the 2019 World Water Day, several cities around the world are in the spotlight to address this need.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s famed city of aquatic splendor, every square kilometer is surrounded by water but the story isn’t the same for everyone. But it’s a story they believe will get better for all.
Television Continental, Abosede Omoruyi noted that water is a free gift of nature many struggles to find; a human right very few can enforce and an occupier of more than 70 percent of earth’s surface.
