Besides clean air, water is beyond a doubt one of the most essential elements in the world when it comes to preserving human life. The body cannot survive without a frequent supply of fresh water, and this liquid is vital to absolutely every organ and cell throughout our physical makeup. Water makes up over two thirds of the human body, allowing our lungs to function, or blood to pump and our brains to work.

Given the undeniable importance of water, it seems amazing that many people continue to take it for granted. Though you may see liquid everywhere you look in the western world, ensuring that every individual across the globe has access to safe, clean water is actually a lot tougher than you might think.

According to UNICEF sanitation, hygiene and water chief, Mr. Kanaan Nadar – an average of 150,000 children die every year in Nigeria as a result of unsafe water and poor sanitation. In spite of these grim statistics, the reasons why improving access to adequate sanitation and water in Nigeria remains horribly slow are complex, wide-ranging, and complicated by a corruption that seeps into various sectors of the economy.

Importantly, issues with poor maintenance and operation, insufficient technical capacity, and inept institutions are all tired to the fact that the water and sanitation of Nigeria is generally seen as a huge failure around the world.

The Painful Statistics

According to UNICEF, a shocking 70 million people in Nigeria do not have access to safe drinking water, whereas more than 110 million do not have access to better sanitation. Beyond this – about 33 million people (roughly the population of Canada), are still forced to defecate in the open.

There is almost no single state within Nigeria that doesn’t currently have an abandoned water project or sanitation construction site that has been in progress for a number of years – creating an opening for fraud and preserving the suffering of many.

Some individuals – those who are largely willing to ignore the sheer size of the problem within Nigeria, bring attention to the fact that almost 27 million Nigerians have gained access to new, clean drinking water since the year 1990. However, this number may seem impressive on the surface, but it fails to take into account that only 47% of the population are able to access safe water today.

Indeed, the biggest shortages can be found within the rural areas of Northern Nigeria, where only a miniscule 30% of people can access clean water. According to USAID – The problem leads to contaminated farmland, high levels of waterborne illness, and even low levels of school enrollment.

Accessing Water

The unfortunate truth is that the significant majority if Nigeria’s water supply stems from “surface water”. Most citizens throughout the area are forced to utilize water that they gather themselves, and this liquid is harvested from wherever it can be found – regardless of hygiene and sanitation considerations.

Nigerians collect their water from ditches, wells, lakes and streams, and most of these sources are untreated, leaving a significant chance for illness and bacteria to develop.

According to the law in Nigeria regarding water, Nigerian locals may take water for domestic purposes without charge from any watercourse that is accessible by the public. Only the richest of urban areas have indoor plumbing, and in those areas it is usually only tourists or the rich who have access to such water.

The problem is easy to see when you consider the fact that around 70% of Nigeria’s population are considered to be below the poverty line, earning less than a single US dollar every day.

Sanitation and Hygiene Problems

In Nigeria, the consistent presence of waterborne contaminants continue to be a significant problem. Even though some people regard the country to be reasonably wealthy due to its oil production figures, hundreds of thousands of children continue to die every year as a result of waterborne illnesses. Though the majority of fatalities are caused by protozoal diarrhea and bacteria, others are caused by painful intestinal worms, Hepatitis E, typhoid fever and Hepatitis A.

For many experts, it is the government that is truly to blame for the current state of Nigeria’s water sanitation problems. The wealth of the location has been kept lining the pockets of government officials from a number of years now, rather than going into the infrastructure as it should be. Though changes are beginning to be made, today Nigeria relies on the help of people across the world, not only in raising funds for clean water, but also in creating awareness about better hygiene practices.

In the fight against Ebola and the spread of other viruses, washing hands with soap has made a significant difference, and everyone across Nigeria should be taught this level of personal hygiene care. Today, many international organizations for aid are helping with the sanitization efforts taking place in Nigeria, from UNICEF and USAID to WaterAid, and education is ensuring that the locals know even simple things such as hand washing and using cloths to strain water can be enough to make a difference.