In a country where there is a wide gulf
between the rich and the middle class,
living in highbrow areas like Lekki, Ikoyi
and Victoria Island in Lagos is a sign of
better life.
The belief of many residents of the
Lagos mainland is that those in these
parts of the city are living large. This is
more reinforced by the fact that the
crème de la crème of the country have
their homes in these places.
If one is to suddenly relocate from the
mainland to either Ikoyi or Lekki, the
belief is that providence has suddenly
smiled on such individual.
But living in these areas has its
downside as Saturday PUNCH has
learnt.
A new finding has revealed that
residents who use water from boreholes
constructed within their compounds in
these areas might unknowingly be
drinking or using water contaminated
with their own human wastes.
Saturday PUNCH was on a finding
mission on the impact of human waste
disposal in the Lagos Lagoon when the
fact came to light that the construction
of septic tanks in these highbrow parts
of Lagos was not a good idea.
The Coordinator of the Lagos State
Wastewater Office, Mr. Lekan
Shodeinde, told Saturday PUNCH that
the water table in these areas was too
shallow, which is why the construction of
both septic and borehole in the same
compound is a dangerous affair.
Shodeinde said, “A lot of houses in areas
like Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki are
polluting the water table.
“Those areas are not supposed to put in
place septic tanks. In some of these
areas, before you dig five feet, you have
reached the water table. Now, imagine
going to such places to put in place
septic tanks which are constructed in
such a way that the waste seeps into
the ground.
“They are simply soiling the water table.
These areas are supposed to have a
centralised wastewater treatment
where the effluent emanating from
households passes for treatment.”
This is the practice in many developed
countries where centralised sewers are
put in place to cater for the
management of human wastes
generated from each home.
According to Steven Burian, Stephan Nix
and Robert Pitt in their study on Urban
Wastewater Management in the US, the
centralised system of management of
wastewater has been in existence in the
country since the middle of the 19th
Century.
Saturday PUNCH spoke with a
bricklayer, who explained that a
standard septic tank could be as deep as
10 feet. Considering the fact that the
water table in these coastal areas is
comparatively shallow, it is possible that
contamination occurs to groundwater
sources in some of the places.
Experts say there may be considerable
hazard for those who use water sourced
from boreholes directly in these areas,
or those who do not have water
treatment facilities or filters in their
homes.
Prof. Ebenezer Meshida of the
Geoscience Department of the
University of Lagos, who also teaches at
the Civil Engineering Department of the
Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti
State, said the type of water one can
get in most parts of Lekki, Ikoyi, Ajah
and Victoria Island, is highly
contaminated.
He said, “The water in the region is not
expected to be used as drinking water.
That type of water can be used to clean
your car or flush the toilets. Any water
you get around five metres depth is
highly dangerous.
“The type of water that is fit for
consumption in that area should be
obtained from boreholes that are very
deep, deeper than third water level.
Those who are experienced in drilling
boreholes understand that at the third
water level, you get fresh water.
Sometimes you get to 200 metres or
300 metres before you can get
drinkable water but some will say it is
too expensive.
“Those who build houses in that zone of
Lagos must be people with millions of
naira in their pockets because it is not a
zone that is good for extracting
drinkable water.
“What is usually obtained there is salty
or polluted water. Most of the diseases
people fall prey to in Lagos are from
polluted water consumption.”
But what can be done by those who
already have shallow boreholes in these
areas?
Prof. Meshida said boiling of the water is
an age-old system that still works fine.
He said, “Boiling is the first stage of
treatment. You can then filter after
that. In those days, we made use of
filters that used candles. If you boil
water from whatever source it comes
from and you filter it with a cloth and
put it in the candle filters, you can be
sure you are safe.
“I will suggest that anybody who wants
to drink water sourced from shallow
boreholes in such areas should go to
environmental chemists. They are in
university chemistry departments. They
will help to analyse the water. They will
be able to identify the chemical
composition and determine the best
way to treat the water.”
A borehole contractor, Mr. Elijah Idowu,
who runs Noble Fourstar Hydro
Resources, explained to Saturday
PUNCH the process it takes to reach a
depth where drinkable water can be
extracted in the Ikoyi-Victoria Island-
Lekki zone.
He said, “Digging borehole is never a
child’s play in that zone because you will
be talking of about 500 or 700 metres
before one can reach a drinkable water
depth.
“If an average depth borehole is about
N500,000 in another place, you will be
looking at about N7m to dig a borehole
in a place like Lekki or Ajah.
“What we do usually is that we screen
and case the contaminated water part of
the hole so that this does not affect the
fresh water we reach at the deeper
part. Even with that, it is still advisable
if the residents install facilities which
they can use to filter the water before
consumption.”
The Lagos Water Corporation has always
discouraged the sinking of boreholes in
the Lagos metropolis but in a city where
a large percentage of the residents do
not have easy access to pipe borne
water, this may be a futile plea.
The Lagos State Governor, Babatunde
Fashola, has also expressed concern
over the proliferation of boreholes in
the state, saying they constituted long
term environmental problem.
In a publication by PUNCH in February
2012, the governor said the residents of
the state were better off with more
water works than more boreholes in
their different houses.
He urged the residents to make use of
domestic connections to their homes
wherever there is a waterworks, saying
government would continue to build
waterworks to bring water close to
various homes in the state.
When Saturday PUNCH spoke with some
residents of these upscale areas, it
turned out that the situation was more
pathetic than most people would
imagine.
Those who spoke with Saturday PUNCH
at Victoria Island, explained that the
water they get from their boreholes is
so bad that it is sometimes totally
unusable without being treated.
At Idejo Street, Victoria Island, a house
guard, Henry Okoro, went inside his
compound and brought out a bowl of
water. It looked like one in which
brown clay had been dissolved.
“This is the kind of water you get from
the borehole here,” he said.
He said a tanker supplies the house with
water from another part of Lagos every
week.
“Some of these tankers collect N10,000
per supply, some N8,000,” Okoro said.
At Osapa London area of Jakande, Lekki,
a resident, Oyebola Ogunsanya, said
even though she did not know that
septic tanks pollute the water table, she
and other residents were not bothered
because the water in their borehole is
not usable.
She said, “The water in the borehole is
like the colour of salt and it is very
salty. Even after treatment, it is still
not usable. We pay tankers to fill our
overhead tanks.
“Apart from the N7,000 I pay to fill the
tank which I share with another
neighbour in my boys’ quarters, I spend
as much as N5,000 weekly on bottled
and sachet water. The water from our
borehole is just unusable.
“Where I was living before, the water
was brownish in colour. You dare not
even think about using it to wash, not to
think of drinking. What we do is that we
treat the water so that it could at least
be used to wash clothes and toilets.
“We have a water treatment plant in
the house. After treating the water, we
wait for about three hours. Then it turns
whitish. Only then can we use it to
bathe or wash toilets. Even at that, one
still has to pour disinfectants in it.
“My sister in Lekki Phase I lives in a six-
bedroom duplex and they have to get
two tankers of water every week.”
But Mrs. Stella Billy-Ashogbon, who lives
in Ajah said the water in that side of the
coast is cleaner than the one obtained
around VI.
She said, “Most people who live here
are those who would not spare cost in
anything they do in their houses. Most
people know that the deeper you go,
the cleaner the water becomes. People
who live here hire professionals to dig
boreholes in such a way that they would
not worry about contamination.
“Most of those who dig shallow wells or
boreholes don’t use them for domestic
purposes. They use it for construction or
to wet flower. To get a sustained
supply, you will have to go very deep.
“Those who build septic tanks around
here take it far away from boreholes
and they can afford to make their
boreholes very deep, no matter the
cost.
“All my friends living between Victoria
Island and Chevron area of Lekki have a
similar problem though. No matter how
deep their boreholes are, the water
they get from there is always brown.
They buy water all the time. Sometimes
they even buy water to wash clothes.
“Saying this place is supposed to have a
centralized sewage system instead of
individual septic tanks is just being
idealistic. We like to be idealistic in the
country instead of addressing our own
peculiarity.”
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