ERA/FoEN Petitions Buhari on the Right to Access to Water for Nigerians

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) had petitioned President Muhammed Buhari on the need to enshrine access to water as a human right in the Nigerian Constitution. “ERA/FoEN Head, Media and Campaigns, Philip Jakpor, [said] the decision to go public with their demands was because the letter sent to the Presidency a month ago was yet to be acknowledged. He said: ‘We are unrelenting in our demands that water as a human right is upheld by government at all levels. Even as we campaign against water privatization in Lagos, we are compelled to demand action at the federal level in form of a constitutional provision on the human right to water.’” ERA/FoEN also “frowned at the World Bank and private water industry, accusing them of being behind the growing proposals for water privatization or PPP plans in many states, particularly in Lagos where the Lagos State Water Corporation (LWC), is pushing very hard for such PPP model that has failed in other parts of the world.”