As part of activities marking the fifth Africa Week of Action Against Water Privatisation, the Our Water Our Right Africa Coalition (OWORAC) convened the Lagos Community Water Parliament on 17 October 2025. The gathering brought together 25 participants from nine communities, including Baruwa, Ajegunle and Iludun, alongside civil society representatives, to document lived experiences and interrogate the intensifying pressures of water privatisation in Lagos State.
From the outset, discussions converged around a central worry. Residents are increasingly alarmed by the Lagos State Government’s decision to invite private investors to take over mini and micro waterworks in locations such as Apapa, Lekki and Adiyan under a Build Finance Operate Transfer model, presented as a Public Private Partnership arrangement. Community members stressed that the problem is not only the model itself but the secrecy surrounding it. They explained that procurement documents and contract details have not been made public despite repeated formal requests for disclosure, and argued that this opacity has deepened distrust and reinforced the perception that major decisions affecting millions of Lagosians are being taken without their knowledge or consent.
As community representatives began to share specific experiences, Baruwa emerged as one of the clearest illustrations of how these policies translate on the ground. The Abesan Water Treatment Plant, which serves Baruwa, is among the facilities identified for the current round of PPP takeover. Residents explained that even before any new contracts are concluded, commercialisation has already begun to erode access and affordability. They recalled that the Lagos State Water Corporation had promised clean, reliable water but failed to deliver on those commitments. Instead, public water is now accessed through a metering initiative and an app-based purchase system known as PayWater, operated by Hydronomics Limited, a private firm linked to WaterAid and the Resilient Water Accelerator.
Within this PayWater system, the cost burden on households has become severe. Families now pay between N1800 and N5177 per week for just one thousand litres of water, with some households spending up to N20,000 per month per flat. Residents stressed that these sums are far beyond what many low-income families can sustainably afford. Yet even with these high payments, water flows only three days a week and often for less than an hour at a time. Supply is entirely dependent on electricity. When power is cut, water is cut, and residents said they were repeatedly told that if the Lagos Water Corporation had to rely on diesel to pump water during outages, then the cost of that diesel would simply be pushed back to users through higher charges. Attempts to drill private boreholes have proved futile, as groundwater in the area remains highly polluted.
Ajegunle residents situated their own experience as part of the same pattern of neglect and creeping commercialisation. They reported that the Ajegunle Waterworks, built decades ago, has deteriorated to the point of near abandonment and appears to be gradually dismantled. Government land surrounding the facility has been converted into private housing, signalling a steady loss of public assets. Although earlier attempts to rehabilitate the system included laying pipelines across the community, these lines have never been activated. The locality continues to face acute water scarcity, pollution and recurrent flooding, with many residents relying on discoloured and unsafe water wells for daily use.
In Iludun, community testimonies reinforced the sense of a systemic crisis rather than isolated failure. Residents described chronic water scarcity and contamination despite living a short distance from the Iju Water Works. They recounted promises by the Lagos State Water Corporation, including assurances given during an engagement with officials last year. Planned pipe routes never materialised, and there is still no clear information on timelines for concrete interventions. As a result, households continue to shoulder the health and economic costs of unsafe and unreliable water.
Drawing these experiences together, representatives from all participating communities agreed that the challenges they face are rooted in the same combination of secrecy, underinvestment and privatisation driven reforms. They called for sustained grassroots engagement through regular Community Water Parliaments and community forums as a way to keep documenting realities, mapping water needs and building collective power. Participants underscored the importance of strengthening alliances with local government representatives, demanding full transparency from state institutions and insisting on meaningful community participation in all decisions relating to water governance.
