In the small village of Akwu, the sun rises with a heavy promise of another scorching day.
Chika, a 15-year-old girl, is already up before dawn. With a worn-out plastic container in her hands, she steps into the soft, early morning mist, her feet bare and cracked from years of walking the same path. Her destination is a creek several miles away, where the villagers gather to draw water.
For years, this creek has served as the primary water source for Akwu, despite the murky water, the foul stench, and the visible debris that floats in the stagnant pools. However, Chika and the other villagers have no choice– this contaminated water is the only option.
She gets to the creek and finds other women already there, crouched over with their containers, scooping water that will be boiled later, to make it somewhat drinkable. The water, tainted with human and animal waste, is the only source they know. For generations, the village has relied on this creek for survival, unaware of the risks it poses.
But Chika knows, she knows that the water is killing her people, slowly but surely. Her younger brother, Obinna, has been sick for months. He spends his days lying in a feverish stupor, his small body wracked with diarrhoea.
The local herbalist, who has been trying to treat him with bitter roots and leaves, is out of options and can’t help any longer. “Why don’t we have clean water, Mama?” Chika once asked her mother, staring at the water in the creek, knowing it was dirty and dangerous. Her mother, Ugo, a woman of quiet resilience, had sighed and told her, “This is what we have, Chika. We must make do.”
But making do is no longer enough. The waterborne diseases are taking their toll on Akwu, and Obinna’s illness is just the beginning. The villagers speak in hushed tones about the growing numbers of children falling ill, of the deaths that have occurred in the past months. Every day, it seems, there is a new victim of the poisoned water invisible enemy that no one can escape.
The suffering is compounded by the lack of government intervention. Akwu has been abandoned like so many rural communities across Nigeria. A lack of proper sanitation infrastructure, no functional water treatment systems, and the absence of accessible, clean water sources have left these communities vulnerable. The government has promised severally to help, but Chika’s village still waits.
Yet, the water crisis is not a distant problem. It’s a looming catastrophe for millions. According to UNICEF, about 60 million people in Nigeria do not have clean water, and nearly 70% of rural communities rely on unsafe water sources. The statistics are stark, but in villages like Akwu, they are more than numbers. They are the lives of children like Obinna, who deserve so much more.
Every time Chika returns home with her water-filled containers, she is met with quiet gratitude from her mother. But Chika knows the truth, this water is a curse. It is a burden that weighs heavily on her heart. She is helpless to protect her village from its ravages.
The village elders have long given up hope that change will come. Their worn faces tell the story of years spent waiting for the promises of government aid that never arrive. The local boreholes, built years ago, now lie abandoned, clogged with dirt and rust, their pumps long since broken. What is left is the daily trek to the creek, which has become an inescapable reality.
Chika dreams of a better life where she doesn’t have to fear for her brother’s life every time he falls ill, where clean water flows freely from taps and doesn’t come at the cost of her childhood. But she knows that for villages like hers, such a dream is a distant hope, an elusive fantasy that few will ever see realized. It’s not just the lack of water that kills in Akwu; it’s the desperation and resignation to fate. The steady toll of lives lost to an invisible enemy that seems impossible to defeat.
Chika’s case is the story of millions of children across Nigeria, children who are born into a cycle of poverty and suffering, and children who are denied the basic human right to clean water. It is a story of a nation that is too often silent in the face of a crisis that can be fixed.
As Chika walks home, the last of the daylight fades behind the hills, she feels the weight of the water jugs on her shoulders. It is the weight of a thousand unmet promises. It is the weight of lives lost and lives yet to be lost, to the unforgiving waters of neglect.
But Chika’s fight is not over. She will keep walking to the creek, hoping against hope that one day, someone will hear the cries of Akwu. And until that day comes, she will continue to dream of clean water for her brother, mother, her village, and every child who has ever been born into the unyielding grip of Nigeria’s water crisis.
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