COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN URBAN WATER SUPPLY MANAGEMENT IN ABEOKUTA – LESSONS FOR SUSTAINABLE WATER SUPPLY IN URBAN COMMUNITIES
Adekitan, O., Oyerinde A. O. and Musa A. I.
Department of Civil Engineering
Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
E-mail: lambano2009@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Provision of water adequately (in terms of quality and quantity) has been a major concern across the globe especially in the developing world. In Nigeria, a number of intervention schemes are established to meet inadequacies in water provision. One of these is the institution of River Basin Development Authorities to augment water supply through the provision of boreholes, dams and the likes. However, there have been claims that the sustainability of these schemes depend largely on the involvement of the recipient communities in the operations and maintenance of these facilities. The involvements of communities in running the borehole facilities provided by Ogun-Oshun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA) at some locations in the city of Abeokuta (south-west Nigeria) were reviewed in this work. Twenty borehole stations were randomly chosen across the urban areas in Abeokuta and questionnaire items (coded) were administered to ten neighbouring residents to do self-assessment of the functioning and water delivery conditions and the level of community involvement in the management of the boreholes. Using the ratings obtained from questionnaire items, an hypothesis was tested at the significance level a = 0.05 using the t statistic. Results show that community participation is highly significant across all but one of the eleven communities whose borehole schemes are still functioning. In addition, a qualitative survey was conducted on two of the eleven communities. The information gathered are deem helpful especially in ensuring sustainable power supply for borehole pumps and in ensuring prompt and adequate maintenance of facilities.
Keywords: borehole water supply, OORBDA boreholes, community involvement, operations and maintenance.