Bulmun Dakwal
In Adamawa State, where thousands of rural families still wake before dawn in search of water, where pregnant women walk long distances carrying yellow jerrycans on their heads, and where children drink from contaminated ponds shared with animals, the state’s House of Assembly Service Commission appears to have different priorities.
Buried inside the state’s budget documents is a project that, on the surface, looks ordinary “Drilling of a bore hole with Overhead Tank at HASC Complex” but the figures attached to it tell a deeper story.
In the 2023 revised budget, the project was valued at N1 million. By 2024, the approved budget jumped dramatically to N36 million. In the 2025 out-year performance estimate, it rose again to N39.6 million and by 2026, the estimate climbed further to N43.56 million.
At a time when many communities in Adamawa remain trapped in water crisis, the steady inflation of a single borehole project inside a government property raises questions about public spending, accountability, and the wide disconnect between government institutions and ordinary citizens.
For residents of Duwa Gari in Gombi Local Government Area, water is not a line item in a budget document, it is a necessity for survival in the community.
In the dusty community, women and children spend hours daily searching for drinkable water. During dry seasons, families depend on muddy sources contaminated by open defecation and animal waste. Residents say outbreak of diarrhea and typhoid are common, especially among children.
The situation reflects a broader reality across several rural communities in Adamawa, where access to clean and safe drinking water remains a luxury rather than a basic right.
Yet while communities battle thirst and disease, millions of Naira are being budgeted for a borehole and overhead tank within the comfort of a government administrative building.
In many villages across the state, broken hand pumps stand like abandoned monuments to failed promises. Some communities rely on streams that dry up under the harsh northern sun. Others trek kilometers to neighboring settlements in search of water.
Without clean water, primary healthcare centers struggle to function effectively. Pregnant women face heightened risks during childbirth, children become vulnerable to cholera, dysentery, and other waterborne illnesses that continue to thrive in neglected rural environments.
Across parts of Adamawa, primary healthcare centers remain in terrible condition. Some buildings have leaking roofs and cracked walls. Others lack electricity, essential drugs, or qualified medical personnel. In certain communities, residents say healthcare facilities exist only in name but not in reality.
Patients often arrive at clinics only to discover there are no nurses on duty or no medication available.
The roads leading to many rural settlements are equally poor, cutting off vulnerable communities during rainy seasons and worsening poverty in areas already struggling with insecurity and underdevelopment.
Against this issue, the rising allocation for a single borehole project at the House of Assembly Service Commission complex appears excessive and ridiculous to many observers.
In Nigeria’s public sector, borehole projects have attracted scrutiny for a long time from anticorruption advocates due to widespread allegations of inflated contracts and poor execution. Across several states, investigations by civic organizations have repeatedly uncovered situations where boreholes budgeted for millions were either never completed, poorly constructed, or disappeared entirely after funds had been allocated.
What makes the Adamawa case particularly sensitive is not merely the cost of the project, but the environment in which it exists.
The House of Assembly Service Commission is not a remote rural institution cut off from infrastructure. It operates within the administrative structure of government. Meanwhile, entire rural populations remain excluded from basic social services.
Civil society advocates argue that budgets are moral documents. They reveal not only how governments spend money, but the value they place on their citizens and in Adamawa today, many rural residents feel forgotten by the people they personally voted into power.
The water crisis in communities like Duwa Gari has triggered repeated calls for government intervention. Community leaders have appealed for urgent action as residents endure worsening conditions. Yet despite these appeals, progress remains painfully slow.
Children continue to miss school while searching for water. Women continue to bear the burden of daily water collection under dangerous and exhausting conditions. Families continue to spend scarce income treating preventable illnesses linked to unsafe water.
The same government system struggling to provide rural boreholes appears capable of sustaining a legislative water project whose budget has multiplied more than forty times since 2023.
Public finance experts note that inflation alone cannot reasonably explain such a huge rise in the cost of a borehole project over a short period, especially in a state where many rural water projects operate on far smaller budgets.