No fewer than 300 communi­ties in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Council of Bau­chi State are suffering from non-availability of safe drink­ing water, a development that has endangered the lives of the inhabitants of the areas.

It was reported that 100 villages in the council area have so far benefited from a rehabilitation of broken down boreholes, courtesy of the intervention of the Afri­can Development Bank (ADB) project.

The council has therefore cried out calling for urgent intervention to save the com­munities considering that recently, there was a reported outbreak of Lassa fever in the area.

This was disclosed at a stake­holders forum held at Bununu, headquarters of Tafawa Bale­wa LGA which was Organised by an NGO known as Women Development Association for self-Sustenance (WODASS) in partnership with WaterAid Nigeria.

The Council’s WASH Co­ordinator, Malam Garba Yau Jambil, who gave the revela­tion, said that of the 775 villag­es in the local government, 300 still source water from wells and streams that are unsafe for human consumption, consider­ing the threat of communica­ble diseases which could pose danger to human lives.

In his remarks, the represen­tative of the traditional leaders in the area, Malam Ibrahim Unar, said that the Hygiene Be­haviour Change (HBC) aware­ness campaign has impacted positively as community members have now realised the danger posed to human health by open defecation.

He said that various families have Embarked on Construc­tion of toilets within house­holds thereby discouraging open defecation.

Malam Ibrahim Umar warned that any household head that fails to abide by the directive to construct toilets would be sanctioned.

He pointed out that already, some traditional leaders in Tafawa Balewa LGA are now on suspension for failure to en­force the directive within their area of jurisdiction.

Also speaking, the pro­gramme manager of WO­DASS, organisers of the stake­holders forum, Mr Ezekiel N. Sukumun, appealed to commu­nity members in Tafawa Bale­wa LGA to cultivate the idea of presenting community needs of the people instead of their personal requests arguing that this remained the best option for them to attract genuine assistance from elected repre­sentatives.(Daily Independent)