Ifop Ulom’s Footstpes At FCT RUWASSA 

When late last year there was a storm in the teacup of Federal Capital Territory Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, FCT RUWASSA, the Nyesom Wike administration decided to restore sanity in the agency and a geologist Mr. Luke Ifop Ulom was seconded from the department of solid minerals to RUWASSA. And since then, sanity has been restored and the agency has been moving higher in its performance rating.

The Overseeing Director of FCT RUWASSA, Ifop Ulom came with a mission, to build upon the successes recorded by the pioneer director of the agency, Eng. Mohammed Ali Dan-Hassan and with determination to surpass the benchmark.

His first official outside function was the commissioning of the water project in Barangoni community in Bwari Area Council. The agency under his watch marked the World Toilet Day celebration, which is an annual event.

In Commemoration of the 2024 World Toilet Day, FCT RUWASSA and other partners organized a sanitation conference to mark the day. Ifop Ulom used the opportunity to call on the stakeholders to collaborate and double their efforts towards eradicating open defecation and other sanitation challenges in the FCT.

The Overseeing Director in his message at the event which has the theme Sanitation for Peace, called for the awareness of the importance of sanitation and hygiene. He urged the good people of FCT to change their behaviors towards eradicating open defecation.

The chief of WASH at UNICEF, who was represented by Ms. Chisom appreciated RUWASSA and other partners for organizing this significant event.

She commended FCT RUWASSA for driving the campaign and for addressing the sanitation   challenges in the Area Councils which has made a measurable impact and achievement in the area of public health.

She therefore called for the collaboration of all partners to coordinate, innovate, and strive together through the future of addressing the issues of sanitation.

The Overseeing Director of FCT RUWASSA, Mr. Luke Ifop Ulom commended the people of Kwali Area Council for adhering to the sensitization campaigns that have been ongoing in the Area Council for 2 years, noting that behavioural change starts from within.

He stated that in the Kwali Area Council, 171 communities had been certified open defecation free by the Task group on Sanitation and are being given certificates of attaining open defecation free status.

He explained that, Kwali Area Council is the pilot phase of the programme with RUWASSA and UNICEF, and the programme will be replicated in all the other Area Councils. 

“171 communities in ten wards across the Area Councils were recognized as open defecation free, three Wards Gumbo, Pai, and Kwali Central are recognized as the Wards with the highest number of communities, certified open defecation free by the FCT Task Group on Sanitation. Part of the recognition is the installation of Signpost, signifying such achievement.”

Ulom said with a staggering figure of about 2 million out of the 6 million residents of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, still taking pleasure in using walkway, bushes and unconventional method for defecating, the Federal Capital Territory FCT Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, RUWASSA has set in motion means and ways to eradicate open defecation by 2025.

He said the agency is not happy with this development; hence plans and efforts are on to ensure the number reduces drastically or totally those who defecate in the open because they derive pleasure in the cool breeze that open defecation gives to them.

Marking its four years of its establishment, the agency, according to its Overseeing Director, Eng. Luke Ifop Ulom commended the laudable giant strides it has embarked upon in eradicating open defecation and ensuring provision of water to the rural communities in Abuja and sustaining hygiene in these areas.

Determined to end this bad attitude amongst the Abuja residents, the agency has provided more than 100 public toilets in some of the communities and most especially in the city centre.

The mission of the agency, according to Luke Ifop Ulom, is to ensure sustainable provision and access to potable water, hygiene and sanitation facilities and services to rural and peri-urban communities in Abuja.

The fact remains that RUWASSA main source of water supply to the rural and peri-urban areas is ground water. And access to improved water supply in rural areas in FCT is estimated at about 45% and access to improved sanitation at less than 30%. Open defecation is still practised in most part of the rural communities and some areas in the urban centers.

The FCT RUWASSA boss, Luke Ifop Ulom said the presidential Executive Order 009 which has set 2025 as target to eradicate open defecation would be pursued with vigour and all hands-on deck to ensure the rural communities enjoyed hygienic environment.

In a bid to rid the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of open defecation, ensure adequate supply of safe water and sanitation in rural communities of the territory, the FCT Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), he said has stepped up effort to collaborate with stakeholders and partners to work out achievable strategies to comply with Presidential Order 009 to end open defecation.

Four hundred and forty-eight (448) communities have been triggered in Kwali Area council, one of the six area councils of FCT. Thirty (30) communities are Open Defecation Free and one hundred and twenty-two is claiming open defecation free (ODF).

We now discovered the rate of open defecation is not just in the communities, even in the cities. You see people defecating in the open; by the highway, and people just enter the gutter, some no shame, it’s not even inside the gutter, just by the side, you just squat and pollute the environment by defecating openly.

The agency carried out WASH Baseline survey on household listing and infrastructure in Gwagwalada and Kwali Area Council in partnership with UNICEF. Baseline survey on WASH facilities in Bwari Area Council in partnership with WaterAid.

According to him, when you have safe drinking water, you are putting away 95% of diseases away. You take care of your water; you take care of sanitation and hygiene. So that will ultimately result in good health conditions of the citizens, such that the money that would have been spent on health issues will now be diverted to other productive ventures.

He, however, said development partners, most especially UNICEF, WaterAid, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and local NGOs have been of great assistance to the agency.

He said the agency eventually selected Kwali to be the model, to ensure it is opundification free. That project is ongoing right now. Six of those solar-powered water schemes that were constructed and completed in addition to the hand-pumped boreholes that it had then. And now the agency had four rural water schemes in each of the 17 chiefdoms making all to be 58.

For the water solar-powered, they are in Byazhin, Kubwa, Pyakasa, Gwagwa, Paiko, and Ibwa, which are spread across the six Area Councils. And this water scheme was targeted at those communities that were potentially at risk of cholera or were affected by the cholera outbreak.

The agency, not just providing the water schemes, also went into community mobilization and awareness program to sensitize the communities because it’s one thing to provide the facilities, it is another thing to maintain the facilities so that was why the chairmen of the Area Councils were invited to get involved. The agency has been trying to convince the communities to buy into these that is why it went through the traditional leaders. It has started succeeding through that aspect.

FCT RUWASSA has been using the traditional rulers, the women groups and also the area councils. At the area council however, the major challenge is having the chairman to support their staff and be part of this project.

JICA is supporting to train artisans, local mechanics in all the six area councils, they are trained on simple maintenance of their water schemes. And at the end of it, they were given two kits, two boxes. The tools they will need to do, carry out some repairs. 

The agency monitors them as they are repairing some water schemes in their communities. JICA supports in the training for a week and engaged them in community-led total sanitation. This community-led total sanitation is part of the activities that you do in targeting a community or a local government to be open to defecation free.

After these projects are established, the projects are handed over to the communities to take charge and sustain it and consider it as their own project to avoid vandalization of the scheme.

Going through these laudable achievements within just four years, there is therefore need to raise the tumblers, clink the glasses and toast to an achieving agency of government. All hail FCT RUWASSA under the leadership of Luke Ifop Ulom.

Abdul is Abuja based journalist and wrote in via abduljelil2001@gmail.com.

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