Life inside Lagos community where residents drink, cook with fuel-polluted water

Living with water speckled with oil has been the daily reality of Iludun, a community in Lagos State. AMARACHI OKEH writes on the plight of the residents, whose contaminated water source has left them in a dire situation

Mrs Omolara Ramoni had three years ago, noticed the borehole water in her block of apartments had started reeking of petroleum. For the first five years after she moved to Iludun, a community in the Ifako Ijaiye Local Government Area of Lagos State, she and her neighbours enjoyed good and clean water before the slowly travelling underground petroleum spillage hit their water source.

With three children under five and one still breastfeeding, unlike before, her children now always fall sick, and the doctors are always asking about their water first and advising her to get another source of water but it is not as easy as that, she said.

“They just received treatment for typhoid; my children fall sick almost all the time. The doctor is always asking me about the water I give them. I explained my situation to him that sometimes my husband is not around to fetch water, but he (the doctor) insisted that we must find a way to get another water to cook.”

“I use the water like that to cook and bathe because we don’t have any option unless my husband is around, then he’d go and fetch water. I can’t fetch and carry water up the stairs especially now that I have a new baby so we are using it like that,” she told Sunday PUNCH.

The mother of three also said she could not afford to pay water vendors whose services she said were too expensive.

“Even a bag of ‘pure water’ (which contains 20 sachets) is not enough for us in one day and a bag is N400. When we moved in here in 2016, the water was good but three years ago, it became bad but now, it has become worse. If they bring light and the water is being pumped, the smell of petrol is so strong that it fills everywhere.

“I bathe them (my children) and use the water to cook like that. There’s nothing I can do because where we can get clean water is very far away so we just use it like that. May God help the younger ones you are looking at, ” she said as she pointed to her children with a defeated look.

A landowner, Alhaja Abiola Ambali, who lives close to Mrs Ramoni, remembered fondly when the government water used to run in the community before it stopped several years ago. Although her privately owned water system was not affected when the contamination first happened, just two years ago, it caught up with her.

Ambali who has lived in Iludun for almost 40 years now said, “I used to be fairer (in complexion) than this but I am now getting dark. Now if I bathe with it (the water), I start itching and when I touch my body it feels as if I didn’t bathe at all.

“There used to be government tap water here but it is no longer running so everyone has been using their boreholes. Before it affected some areas, it wasn’t getting here but now, it is everywhere. Almost all the houses in this area are affected except one. It has already spread to an estate nearby,” she disclosed.

Ramoni and Ambali are among the latest victims of the continuous spread of petroleum spillage from the underground Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited petroleum-carrying pipeline that runs through the community.

Beginning of the end

Iludun means ‘town is sweet’ in Yoruba but nine years ago, that ‘sweetness’ was taken away from the community when a state-contracted company began construction in the area.

In 2014, a construction company was awarded a contract by the Lagos State Government to build a new bridge on the NNPC Pipeline Road/Igwe Ohazulike Road. The road was divided by a natural gorge.

The proposed new bridge was to replace the old one that had become unsafe and claimed at least five lives during flooding seasons, according to residents in the area.

Beneath the road aptly named Pipeline Road lay the NNPCL pipelines conveying fuel, kerosene and diesel through Lagos to Mosimi and down to Escravos.

But during preparations for the construction of the bridge, the Chairman of the Iludun Council Development Area, Felix Ikupolusi, said the contractor erred.

“I don’t know how the contractor came about piling in the construction,” Ikupolusi said.

“They started piling forgetting that there are pipelines beneath the ground and piling involves a lot of vibration; I suspect it was the vibration from the piling that broke the PMS pipe resulting in spillage.

Piling is the process of driving pile foundations into the ground beneath a building that is under construction. Piles transfer loads from the structure to the ground, helping to support it, according to Tensar, an organization that provides innovative, project-specific solutions for common development applications for sites. Pile foundations are often used where the ground is too weak to underpin the structure.

Ikupolusi, who has also lived in Iludun for over 30 years, said, “If you are conversant with what is happening in the Niger Delta, this is exactly what happened (in Iludun). When there is a leakage of crude oil, it will spread and when it gets to the ground, it will penetrate the ground and it can travel half or one kilometre. That is exactly what happened in this case.

“So, when the pipe got broken, the spillage began to penetrate the community and all the underground water was being polluted.”

Rev Victoria Adedayo owns the house that stands just before the cliff that separates the long strip of road from the other due to the natural gorge.

Sunday PUNCH learnt that on the first day the contractors came in 2014, their equipment was assembled in front of her house.

Adedayo, a retired civil servant, recalled asking the contractor whether they had cleared with the NNPCL because of the pipelines buried underground.

“I asked the engineer then whether he had contacted the NNPCL because this place is NNPC Road and the rig is not straight. He said he had perfected everything. Then we learnt that their equipment had burst an NNPCL pipeline. When it happened, they abandoned work and left

“Later they came back. They tested my water and found it was okay but unfortunately, on the other side of the canal, the water had already become contaminated. The people there can no longer drink it; those who used to sell could no longer sell.”

It was gathered that due to the pressure mounted on the contractors for a solution to the spillage, they eventually abandoned the project, leaving some of their materials behind.

Following the water contamination, the community wrote letters to the NNPCL, the local government and the state government, but there was no immediate response or respite.

A year and a half later, Ikupolusi and some other residents told our correspondent that the NNPCL came and repaired the broken pipeline. A WhatsApp message was sent to the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, as he requested, to confirm the repair of the bridge, but it had yet to be responded to as of the time of filing this report.

Consequently, by the time NNPCL repaired the pipeline, the damage had already been done and petroleum had sunk into the underground water sources in the area.

More residents lament

Afuwape Street, one of the streets in Iludun, was quietly busy with water sellers pushing containers of water in a cart to homes while some women and children were seen with bowls and buckets searching for boreholes to fetch water when our correspondent visited.

On top of some water filled wells seen by our correspondent in the area sat shiny coats of oil which indicates the presence of iron. Homes with tanks bore unmissable badges of the devastation the water contamination had caused; there were brown and rusty water lines running down the water tanks.

For a community, just like many others in the country, that provides water through private boreholes and wells for themselves, things were no longer the same. All the private water sources in the area have become useless due to the contamination.

Ikupolusi estimated that over 300 houses had so far been affected by the water contamination.

For another homeowner and resident of the area, Andrew Nkem, the pride of owning a house became a regretful decision nine years ago when the contamination happened.

Nkem, who has lived in Iludun for over 30 years, said he noticed the contamination when he turned on his tap one day in 2015 only to be struck by the smell of petroleum. After a quick enquiry from his neighbours, he found he was not alone. A lot of other residents had encountered the same thing.

“Before 2015 we used to drink our borehole water. It was very good but at this point, we cannot even use it to take our bath,” Nkem said.

He told Sunday PUNCH that his two children, then under three years old, used to suffer chronic throat infections which they spent days and money treating at the Ifako General Hospital repeatedly. He said the doctor told them it was due to bad water.

“Around 2017 when my son was two years old, if you left him unsupervised, he’d sneak into the bathroom to play with water. My daughter did the same thing around that age and developed the same issues.

“They had mostly throat infections. The first thing the doctors asked was, ‘Do you people have good water?’ They didn’t even mention food, they first asked about the water.

“My daughter, in 2021, when she was about two years old, was hospitalised because of it. She was admitted for at least seven days and we used to buy antibiotics that cost N6,000 then for her daily treatment,” he added.

But now, the children are older and Nkem and his wife have taught their children to know that they have bad water and shouldn’t touch it.

The father of two lamented how he had to spend at least N30,000 monthly to buy water for cooking, drinking and bathing.

“It is ironic because you cannot have water in your compound and not be able to use it. What is then the essence of having a borehole in your compound? Why do I need to buy water for everything I need water for in my house when there is water in my compound?

“At one time, a new water seller was surprised that there was water in the compound and yet people still buy water from outside to use,” he said.

But Nkem still spends N22,000 bi-monthly to treat the water. Unfortunately, the treatment does not take away the unmistakable smell of petroleum which has affected the water source underground already.

Mr Bodunrin, another resident of the area, has spent years looking for remedies that have yet to offer any lasting solution. In his compound is a now-permanently locked well just beside the new borehole he sank that still pumps adulterated water.

Above the one-storey building he calls home is the water tank that has on its overflow trail, lingering evidence of contaminated water – a rusty trail of dried brownish substance clinging to the sides of the tank running down to the ground.

“The stench of the water is unmistakable. It is everywhere here. We buy water to cook. Nobody can use this (contaminated water) to cook. The water we pump from the borehole is contaminated.

“The well water was developing the issue so we thought that if we drilled a borehole, the issue wouldn’t occur but this is worse. This well is about 120 feet,” he said.

He further noted that despite efforts to purify the water, it had remained unsafe for them.

“We don’t drink it. The only thing that we have been able to do is to reduce the colour with water treatment. The colouring will clear but you will still perceive petroleum in the water.

“We usually treat it. We buy chlorine to clean it but still. The genesis of everything is the bridge,” Bodunrin added.

Iludun is lined with houses indicating different levels of socioeconomic status, but despite the outward distinctions, the residents all suffer the same fate – bad and unusable water that seems to have defied different measures adopted to treat it.

Expressing frustration over this, an octogenarian, Solomon Afuwape, who has lived in the area for over 40 years, said, “I have used several chemicals to reduce the petrol content in the water yet it persists. When you fetch the water, after 30 minutes, you begin to see the oil on the water. Because of the contamination, we have a tank but despite that, the chemical enters the borehole water too. We use it to bathe and wash clothes only.

“We have taken several steps to let the government know what we are going through but up till now, there’s been no response. We have water but we cannot use it.”

Maryam, another resident, said the poor quality of the water was so obvious that she could not use it for cooking.

“Our water is bad but the one we fetch from a block industry is better. There’s water in my house but I cannot use it because of how bad it is. I cannot use it for both cooking and eating.

“If you fetch it, you will see a sign of petrol on the surface of the water. It is very very bad,” she said.

Businesses abandoned, homes sold

Just as homeowners suffer, businesses in the area have also suffered heavy losses. Some homeowners have also fled the area, either selling their homes outright or abandoning them, our correspondent learnt.

Ambali and Ikupolusi told Sunday PUNCH in separate interviews that at least three landlords had sold their homes.

Nkem, who also owns rental accommodation in the same area, said the water pollution had taken a toll on his business as most tenants did not renew their rent after one year.

“This water contamination is affecting us as landowners because when we want to do real estate business, people tell others not to come here because the water is bad and contaminated. Who would want to live here?

“Some landowners are leaving their homes. If I had money to relocate to another place, I would have but I would not leave my own house and go and rent somewhere else. I have to be a landowner too,” he told our correspondent.

Narrating further, he said, “I have had people who came to live in my house for just one year. They pay their first rent and they are not renewing. You can imagine the loss. The value of homes in this area is depreciating.

“A lot of people who used to sell food have closed down and left because people no longer buy from them because they are afraid.

“A car wash I know shut down while another moved uptown because the water spoilt customers’ cars. The paints on the vehicles were fading out.”

Underground water contamination

Total petroleum hydrocarbons in the presence of soil hurt human health and the development of plant growth. Spills, leaks and other environmental factors associated with petroleum products cause hazards to human health, fortunejournals.com, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, noted.

“Total petroleum hydrocarbons are used to describe mixtures of organic compounds found in or derived from crude oil that have the potential to be most toxic. It’s made up of hydrogen and carbon but may also contain sulfur, nitrogen, heavy metals, and oxygen compounds,” Sylvia Adipah said in an article titled, ‘Introduction of Petroleum Hydrocarbons Contaminants and its Human Effects,’ and published in the journal.

Furthermore, the composition of petroleum hydrocarbons varies slightly by source, but the toxic properties are consistent. Chemicals such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are extremely toxic components of high concern, said the researcher.

The US Environmental Protection Agency added that the contamination of groundwater could result in poor drinking water quality, loss of water supply, degraded surface water systems, high cleanup costs, high costs for alternative water supplies, and or potential health problems.

The contamination of underground water sources with hydrocarbons in petroleum is also a threat to public health, the United Nations Environment Protection said during its assessment of the level of petroleum contamination in the Niger Delta.

According to a research titled, ‘Contamination of groundwater by petroleum hydrocarbons: Impact of fuel stations in residential areas,’ by Ghanaian researchers, Bernard Fei-Baffoe et all, and published by Cell.com, said when there are (fuel) leaks, fuel permeates the soil and ultimately makes its way into the groundwater.

It said even a small leakage rate of two drops per second could render nearly half a billion gallons of water unfit for drinking due to odour and taste issues.

They disclosed that some of the effects of contaminated water included gastrointestinal problems like stomach aches, cramps, nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting, skin and eye irritation, respiratory issues, neurological problems, and heightened stress levels.

It can also influence mental health, triggering both physical and physiological effects with the potential to induce toxicity in genetic, immune, and endocrine systems The long-term health risk is that continued exposure can elevate the risk of developing cancer over time, the researchers added.

Community’s demands

Getting the face behind the construction company proved unsuccessful due to its elusiveness.

However, Ikupolusi said the community has continued to demand compensation for those affected. They also asked for an alternative source of water, requesting that the state water corporation be reactivated in the community

“We would like the possibility of the NNPCL’s intervention for what we call mop-up operation so that they can mop up that spillage underground. Another is that the government can provide money for the homes that are affected so that they would be able to dig new boreholes that will have a depth of about 200 metres,” he said.

Experts weigh in

Experts said it was unethical for a contractor not to conduct an environmental impact assessment first before beginning construction. Similarly, they noted that the government should have conducted the same EIA before awarding the contract.

Even though the NNPCL has fixed the broken pipeline, the damage has already been done, a professor of Toxicology at Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, Mu’azu Abubakar said.

He said the presence of rust on water tanks and walls of homes clearly showed that the iron content of the water was high.

“Whenever you see rust like that with other petroleum chemicals, then you should expect adverse health effects. They are there and it will continue till when there is an intervention.

“You don’t know what will happen to the younger children when they grow up. It may be an effect that will manifest through their children. It can be more than that because of all those chemicals that are in the petrol, then you are likely to see those effects.”

A public health physician, Aliyu Sokomba, remarked that exposure to such contaminated water has both long and short-term effects.

Sokomba said when the contaminated water is consumed, the individual is exposed to harmful chemicals, leading to various health consequences.

“It exposes the individuals to harmful chemicals, leading to acute and chronic health effects that can range from respiratory issues, skin irritation, brain problems, liver and kidney damage, and even cancer if the exposure is long enough.

“It can also cause reproductive issues, growth, and development issues in children,” he added.

Similarly, the scientific journal, ScienceDirect, stated that petroleum contamination also affects soils.

“Petroleum hydrocarbons and their derivatives may also affect the soil properties, such as mechanical properties, Atterberg limits, shear strength, texture, porosity, permeability, and microbial communities,” it stated.

Is clean-up possible?

A professor of Environmental Toxicology and Aquatic Pollution in the Faculty of Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Olayinka Adewoye, however, said efforts could be made to fix the problem.

Adewoye suggested remediation of the area as a way to clean up the contaminated underground water.

“What we call bioremediation could be considered. This is done by using biological resources where certain microorganisms would be allowed to grow either naturally or artificially in that area, which will take time.

“What the microorganisms would do is that they would absorb pollutants, especially microalgae. If they are allowed to grow on that land for like two to three years, it would reclaim the area,” he said.

The expert further noted that though another method was by growing plants or vegetation, they would not be used for any domestic use because that vegetation would absorb those heavy metals, and pollutants from that place.

“After they are grown, they would be uprooted and burnt and cannot even be used for firewood because they are planted for a purpose,” he added.

A professor of Environmental Law at the University of Benin, Sunday Egbodo, advised the community to seek legal redress.

“The principal party there is the contractor because those pipes, I’m sure, must have been there for many years and so when the contractor came to do the bridge, they should have carried out an environmental impact assessment of that project.

“This is a case where contractors negligently destroyed those pipes and consequently caused the oil spillage in the society. That is based on the fact that they failed to carry out an environmental assessment of the project, which is negligence,” he added.

Meanwhile, a non-governmental organisaiton, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, which has been engaged in seeking solutions for the community, criticised the state for not taking into consideration the federal assets on its path before awarding the contract.

CAPPA’s Programme Director, Sefa Ikpa Ikpa, stressed that the NNPCL pipes were federal assets mapped out but were overlooked in the contract process, leading to the damage.

“There is a comprehensive map for all federal assets across the country so is there no form of collaboration between the federal and state ministries of works and infrastructure? If you give out a contract, you are supposed to know what is on the ground in the first place but that wasn’t done which is why the contractor punctured the pipeline,” she said.

We are aware – LASG

The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, established in 2006, under the Ministry of Environment is the agency responsible for monitoring and responding to oil spills in Nigeria.

The zonal office of the agency in Lagos was contacted through the number on its website. An official who declined to give their name asked our correspondent to visit their office because they needed to dig into their archive to get information on the community.

The officials also said the agency would only provide any information physically.

However, the General Manager of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, Dr Babatunde Ajayi, told our correspondent that the state was aware of the contamination, adding that “it is one of those lines of overlap between federal and state responsibility”.

Ajayi said the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, had the responsibility to mop up oil spills and do remediation from pipelines.”

“What we usually do when we have such cases like this is to escalate such cases to responsible agencies of the Federal Government. At the very least, once the leakage is sealed, we can advocate remediation.

“I suspect the state would have done a proper community engagement and some kind of test to know what went wrong. When things like this happen, the responsible agency would have done an extensive check to know who caused what and how it went down,” he added.