The Rural Water Revolution In Nasarawa

From dry taps to flowing boreholes – how Governor Abdullahi Sule is rewriting the water story

For more than a decade, the story was the same across Nasarawa State. In Lafia, Keffi, Karu, Awe, Akwanga, Doma and beyond, taps ran dry. Rural families walked kilometres to unsafe streams, women and children fetched water at dawn at great personal risk, and water vendors thrived without any standard of hygiene. The consequence was predictable – cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid and dysentery became seasonal tragedies.

It was against this background that Governor Abdullahi A. Sule came into office with one clear promise: water.

Upon assumption of office, he imposed a state of emergency on water supply, inaugurating a committee to appraise all government water schemes and determine what needed to be fixed. His message was simple – his people faced untold hardship searching for water daily and his administration would deliver uninterrupted supply.

A critical decision that followed was to revive the moribund Nasarawa State Rural Water and Sanitation Agency, NARUWASA, as the engine room to drive the National Action Plan for Revitalisation of the WASH programme and the Partnership for Expanded Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, PEWASH, in the state.

NARUWASA became the grassroots arm. Under its General Manager, Geologist Haruna Ewa, the agency took the campaign beyond Lafia, from Wamba to Awe, and from Akwanga to Toto. Leveraging his long history as a labour leader, Ewa anchored the strategy on traditional rulers and community leaders, getting communities to take ownership of the fight against open defecation and to embrace toilet use and sustainable hygiene. One year down the line, that advocacy is gaining momentum and rural communities where waterborne diseases once thrived are now embracing safer practices.

The Sule administration understood that advocacy without hardware is empty. The State Water Board was therefore mandated to restore supply across all 13 local government areas. The government repaired and replaced high-lift and low-lift pumps in Keffi, Karu, Akwanga, Nasarawa, Toto, Lafia, Doma, Obi, Wamba, Keana and Nasarawa Eggon, rehabilitating water works that had not pumped water into their overhead tanks for over ten years and restoring supply to towns like Nasarawa Eggon, Wamba, Doma, Keana, Nasarawa, Toto and Awe, where vandalised transmission lines and failed boreholes had cut the town off for years.

In parallel, the Ministry of Water Resources and Rural Development under Commissioner Hon. Mohammed Agah Muluku has driven what officials call a solar-powered revolution. Within eleven months of his appointment on February 21, 2025, the Ministry completed solar-powered boreholes for communities under the Madagwa Hausawa Development Association, covering Madagwa Hausawa, Tudun Okpu and Tudun Abosho in Lafia Local Government Area, while also delivering a borehole at the NDLEA Headquarters in Lafia and at the Mararaba abattoir in Karu. In Keffi and Doma, forty simple solar-powered boreholes were handed over to communities, with new facilities also provided across Akwanga town and two at the Brekete Family Smart City Estate in Chakuwa-Gurku, Karu. The sanitation component moved with it, with new toilet facilities delivered in Keffi, Karu, Doma, Keana and at Government Junior Secondary School, Kaduna Koro in Obi Local Government Area.

That momentum is being scaled up with massive capital injection. The State Government has approved over one billion naira for the upgrade of water supply infrastructure in the Nasarawa West Senatorial District alone, while the Governor has engaged the Islamic Development Bank and the African Development Bank for grants to reach the nooks and crannies of the state. On the ground, ongoing works include the dredging of River Amba, the major raw water source for the Lafia Water Works, the construction of a booster station at Garaku to enable water from the Mada Water Works reach Keffi metropolis with ease, a pilot irrigation scheme at Ungwan Mamman in Daddere Development Area of Obi, and new solar-powered schemes with one hundred thousand litre and twenty thousand litre overhead tanks at the Federal Fire Service Base along Jos Road in Lafia and at the Nasarawa State University, Gudi Campus.

Looking ahead to the 2026 fiscal year, the Ministry has earmarked more solar-powered boreholes for St. Mathew’s Anglican Church and the entire Kemu community in Nasarawa Local Government Area and for Dogon Dutse community, potable water for seven government veterinary clinics, a water-quality testing laboratory at the headquarters in Lafia, rehabilitation of minor water schemes at the 500 Housing Estate along Doma Road, and procurement of a drilling rig. Discussions are also underway with the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa for water supply systems in Obi, Nasarawa Eggon and Akwanga, alongside Federal Government matching grants under NARUWASSA and the Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria Project in Doma, Akwanga and Keffi.

For rural Nasarawa, this is not just about pipes and pumps. It is about public health, dignity and productivity. When a child no longer spends two hours searching for water, she stays in school. When a community stops drinking from an unsafe stream, cholera stays away. When a town like Awe finally gets water at the Emir’s palace and at public taps after years of dry pipes, it restores confidence in government.

The administration is treating water as a social service, pursuing sustainability through solar power to cut operating costs rather than through higher tariffs.

The taps are not yet flowing everywhere and much work remains on ageing networks and vandalised lines. But from Kokona to Awe, from Wamba to Toto, the narrative has shifted.

The era when communities were compelled to depend solely on unsafe streams and rivers is giving way to an era where clean, safe and potable water keeps flowing across Nasarawa communities. That is the quiet revolution Governor Abdullahi Sule promised, and one year into the renewed drive at NARUWASA under Geologist Haruna Ewa, it is becoming increasingly visible.