Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed deep concerns over the indiscriminate drilling of water boreholes in residential areas, warning that the long-term effects could be severe.
Speaking at his Abeokuta residence during a visit from the management and staff of the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority, led by Managing Director Dr. Adedeji Ashiru, Obasanjo attributed the rise in borehole constructions to the failure of successive governments to maintain the Oyan Dam project. The visit was part of activities marking World Water Day.
According to a statement from his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, Obasanjo emphasized the critical need for responsible water management, cautioning that the unchecked drilling of boreholes in Abeokuta could have dire environmental consequences.
“We cannot deemphasise the importance or usefulness of water to human life and that is why we do say water has no enemy,” he stated.
The former president recalled that during his tenure as military head of state in 1977, he prioritized strategic water management as a means to achieve food sufficiency and security.
This led to the establishment of 11 river basins across the country, including the Oyan Dam, which was intended to provide water and electricity to residents of Ogun and Lagos states.
However, Obasanjo lamented that nearly five decades after its construction, the dam has not fulfilled its intended purpose.
He noted that the infrastructure, capable of generating 9MW of electricity, remains underutilized, depriving the region of much-needed water supply and power generation.
“Oyan Dam was built to supply water for Abeokuta and Lagos but it has been neglected and ignored, just like the turbine for the power supply,” he said. “The water supply is not there for Abeokuta and we have rather continued to dig holes everywhere, causing the water level to go down and down, which will have repercussions in the future. How long that will take is what I don’t know, but the geologist can do their job and tell us how fast that repercussions will come.”
Dr. Ashiru commended Obasanjo for his visionary leadership in establishing the river basins 48 years ago, noting that the global push for effective water management, which the United Nations only embraced a decade ago, was something Obasanjo had already recognized in the 1970s.
He further revealed that since assuming office, he and his team had been working to revitalize the basin for agricultural development, flood control, and other essential uses.
He also highlighted the federal government’s renewed commitment under President Bola Tinubu to ensuring the river basins are fully utilized to enhance food security.
As part of this effort, Ashiru announced plans to construct seven new dams across the Southwest, with a N45 billion budget allocation for 2025 to drive irrigation farming and other critical projects.
