The Contending Issues of Domestic Water Supply in Makurdi Metropolis, Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

This research investigates the various sources of water available in Makurdi metropolis, the state capital of Benue State, Its distribution across the various wards, its availability and frequency using both primary and secondary sources of data. A total of 200 respondents (households) were chosen randomly across the various wards of Makurdi. The questionnaire was administered to 200 households, 193 returned the questionnaires while 7 of them were lost. The results of the analysis show that 53.7% of all the respondents had running public taps in their homes while 46.3% do not have such facilities at home and of those that had running taps at home indicates that only 23.8% of them had water running more than three times in a week. Also about 45.4% of the respondents only had water occasionally and 18.8% had water once a week. The remaining 15% had water running in their taps two to three times in a week. More so, this study here shows how sufficient and adequate is water supply from Water Board. This revealed that 7.1% of the household have sufficient and adequate water supply due to storage system in their houses and about 19.2% have not adequate water supply. This confirms that the problem of water supply in the area is affiliated to the increase in the demand for water as against the inadequate supply of water due to insufficient power supply and problem of inadequate pumping infrastructure. Consequently, some parts of the study area which are closer to the Benue State Water Board have water supply more than the area that are far away from the water board who suffer inadequate water availability and abundance. This study therefore suggests some solutions in which if properly implemented will help to a greater extent in solving the problem of water supply in area.

Keywords: Domestic Water Supply; Makurdi; Water shortage;  Sources.