NGURU, YOBE STATE, NIGERIA – The soft-spoken mother, Khadija Ahmed, was middle aged and had no degree, but she recognized the forces silently eroding the life from her village.
ABUJA, NIGERIA – When Engr. I.K. Musa looks out through the windows of his office in the nation’s capital he sees a hilly landscape green from abundant rainfall.
SAKOM, GHANA – Throughout the rainy season of 1999, the villagers here watched helplessly as the dam filled and seepages grew into leaks, and they knew it was only a matter of time before the rising waters would burst.
“Now there will be no need for war over natural resources if they are managed well.” -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsing KYB $125 million CMP
TIGA DAM, KANO STATE, NIGERIA – The family of Sarkin Kogi (Hausa for chief of the river) Adamu Tiga once inhabited the land that now lies covered by two billion cubic meters of water behind the 48-meter-high Tiga Dam.
TENKODOGO, BURKINA FASO – Some dismiss West African ‘folk wisdom’ or ‘crazy superstition.’ But the traditional beliefs of the indigenous faiths helped ensure the White Volta River flow with integrity and health for thousands of years.
“The deep rottenness of Nigeria’s political system threatens all the economic gains this giant country has made.”
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO – In 1998 water in Ghana’s Akosombo and Kpong Dams fell below its operating level. As the dams provide 95% of Ghana’s total electricity supply, power shortages afflicted the entire nation.
HADEJIA NGURU WETLANDS, NIGERIA – At first glance, it looked and felt like the majestic Florida Everglades in America.
ALONG THE SENEGAL RIVER VILLAGES, MALI and SENEGAL – The two countries shared a single river, and all the tensions boiling up through its troubled waters.
GASHUA, YOBE STATE, NIGERIA – After a lifetime spent fishing for food and income, Alhaji M. Ibrahim Chedi, the village leader of Ruwan Barde, has begun to suffer chronic pains in his legs.
BOLGATANGA, GHANA – Ignorance was not bliss. Not when a population of 18 million people expanding at 2.5% a year increasingly demanded more and more water from the Volta River basin to drink, farm, flush, scrub, fish and water their cattle.
“Nigeria has failed to plan for how to stem the dreadful pollution in its oil-producing Delta region or to prevent desertification tearing at the fabric of its dry Muslim north.” -- “Drying up and flooding out.” The Economist, 12 May 2007