Blackworld Institute, CSOs write Sanwo-Olu, reject water privatisation in Lagos By Edu Abade

THE Institute of the Black World 21st Century and a host of African American civil society organisations (CSOs), including Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, have written Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to stop any plans to privatise water in Lagos State.

In the letter dispatched from the United States of America on February 4, 2020, the groups expressed their solidarity with Lagosians and the Our Water Our Right Coalition, saying their support was part of a “collective struggle together to achieve the universal human right to clean and safe potable water.”

Signatories to the letter are, Rev. Jackson, President of Rainbow Coalition; Nayyirah Shariff, Director of Flint Rising; Hilary Shelton, Senior Vice-President for Advocacy and Director of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Washington Bureau; Rev. Terrence Melvin, President, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Albany, NY; and, Ebonie Riley, National Action Network, Bureau Chief, Washington DC, among others.

Speaking to journalists on a video call at a media briefing in Lagos organized by Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), President, Institute of the Black World 21^st Century, Dr. Ron Daniels, Gregory Akili of Corporate Accountability and Shariff, urged the Sanwo-Olu administration to abandon its planned water privatisation and listen to demands for a public water system with the necessary investments to work for all Lagosians.

They said they have also requested that the Congressional Black Caucus of the U.S. Congress use its influence to bring attention to the demands of the Our Water Our Rights Coalition in Nigeria and other community-based grassroots campaigns across the continent.

Daniels, whose position was strongly buttressed by Akili, explained that the decision to write the Lagos State Government was reached at a recent Roundtable discussion on water as a human rights with African American leaders in Washington DC, saying at the meeting, the groups learnt about strategies of multinational corporations to profit from the privatisation of water systems in Africa.

“Nigeria has emerged as the epicenter of this insidious effort. Because of our racial, cultural and historical relationships with the people of Africa, we have a strong commitment to standing in solidarity with the Our Water Our Rights Coalition in Nigeria,” he said.

Shariff, director of Flint Rising who explained how the Flint water pollution in US impacted women, revealed that the high concentration of lead in the city’s water system affected the fetuses of pregnant women and the impacts are still being documented.

She said that residents of Flint are in solidarity with Lagosians, and that, “We may be on different soils but we are united against inequalities and injustices regardless of where it is arising within the globe’’

Speaking, Deputy Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Akinbode Oluwafemi, explained nearly eight months of the Sanwo-Olu administration, the government has not responded to demands of the Our Water Our Right Coalition for a blueprint on how to resolve the Lagos water crisis and recommendations on real solutions.

Oluwafemi said the coalition is demanding that Sanwo-Olu’s administration reject all forms of water privatisation and commodification, uphold the human right to water as a government obligation and integrate broad public participation in developing plans to achieve universal access to clean water.

He also charged the Lagos State Government to build the political will to prioritise water that would lead to a comprehensive plan that invests in the water infrastructure necessary to provide universal water access, among others.