Bauchi Defies Power Outage To Provide Alternative Water Supply

Amidst a power outage that has been ravaging almost eleven Northern states for eleven days now, Bauchi state has devised an alternative to providing water to its teeming populace, which has been provided through a power supply.

The Board Chairman of the Bauchi State Urban Water and Sewerage Corporation (BSUWSC), Alhaji Yayanuwa Zaimabari, said that the state government has detected the board to supply water to the people at least on a skeleton basis.

Zainabari told the press Wednesday, “As I am talking to you now, the board started yesterday evening. And hopefully, we could supply water to all the nooks and crannies of the Bauchi metropolis on a skeleton basis”.

He added, “As a backup, we also have water tankers, which we could deploy to fetch water from Gubi dam for distribution to hard-to-reach areas of the Bauchi metropolis. This exercise will continue until the state gets power from the national grid.”

The Chairman explained that his board is now buying diesel at a rate between N1 200 and N1 400. “Even at N1 200, we are talking about 40 million litres per truck, and for us to go full production, we are talking of a truck in three days, which means we would require ten trucks in a month.”

“So if we spend 40 million per truck, we are talking of N400 million, which is absurd. So we pray power will be restored as quickly as possible to provide adequate water to Bauchi metropolis and all the good people of Bauchi state,” Zainabari added.

He reassured that his team will work with relevant stakeholders in the water sector to ensure no disruption in water supply as they will remain focused, proactive, and innovative in their approaches to achieve the desired objectives.