Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Peter Onyeri, one of Africa’s experienced aviation and projects management specialists, will be sworn in this month of March 2022, as President of the Nigerian Water and Sanitation Association (NIWASA). He was elected into office on October 4, 2021. Here are excerpts from his interview with the Founder of USAfrica multimedia and public policy networks, Dr. Chido Nwangwu.
USAfrica: in a couple of weeks you will be sworn in as President of the Nigerian Water and Sanitation Association; what are your goals and outlook into this significant mandate?
Peter Onyeri: Thank you for having me speak on the critical element of water in Nigeria, a very strategic African country. I have had cause on many occasions to tell people that if there is anything that has the greatest potential for a rapid destabilization of Africa, it is water. That position is largely been validated in the many social conflicts that are presently sweeping through parts of Africa and Nigeria in particular. Under different guises, water crises in Africa is real and assuming dangerous dimensions. In Nigeria, with its huge population of more than 180 million, the challenge of water can best be described as a time bomb with huge implications for the rest of Africa.
At the initial signs of this problem in the early eighties, some Nigerian professionals and businessmen got together to incorporate the Nigerian Water and Sanitation Association, NIWASA, in 1983. It was essentially a patriotic intervention to assist the Nigerian government in the management of a risk breakdown that has the capacity to destabilize the whole of Africa.
At some point there were well over 100 business organizations and many strategic memberships of individuals and academics in its register. The businesses were to provide dire and required technologies to support the specialized human capacity needed in the industry. The body had very strong collaborative partnerships and engagements with governments and many influential national, continental and global groups like the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, NACCIMA and the UNICEF. But the water situation, exacerbated by a rapidly growing population, massive rural urban migration and climate change, worsened and became very complicated.
Consequently, the body, inadequately designed for the emerging realities, became overwhelmed and started floundering with a loss of critical focus. The water crises in Africa and Nigeria today had worsened to the extent that informed projections are that the problems will become catastrophic by 2025. That is just three years from now.
As a business analyst and project management professional involved in the practice area of rescuing distressed systems and organizations in strategic turnarounds, I knew it was time for me to step forward and provide the transformational leadership and reengineering process for a redefined vision and mission for NIWASA and its stakeholders. While a lot of backstage work has commenced, our formal swearing-in is planned to coincide with the ceremonies for the 2022 World Water Day in March. I see my time in office as a national duty given the 2025 forecast for Nigeria.
What are the key goals of your Association?
Primarily, the new NIWASA has a top goal in forging a strong strategic partnership with the federal government, as the statutory authority in the management of the challenges of the sector.
We shall aspire to become the foremost private sector led influencer in the water sector in Nigeria. It hopes to be the most consulted organization for support services to the water, sanitation and hygiene industry through effective partnerships and collaborations, enabled by a high standard of reliability, confidence and trust in its activities and services.
Ultimately, it will be our overriding goal to create value while safeguarding the interests of our members at all times. Capacity building and development as well as strong advocacy initiatives will be key enablers of these aspirations and we shall dedicate special attention to them. We shall diligently seek out and welcome collaborators to support our facilitation efforts on these, from anywhere around the world.
What are the immediate goals of your Presidency?
Growth and development are about human beings. In spite of everything else, NIWASA will need capable hands to effectively its desired role in society. One of our immediate goals therefore will be to cultivate a strong value-adding membership base of individuals and corporate bodies in strong alliances that cut across Nigeria, Africa and the world. Many of Nigeria and indeed sub-Saharan Africa’s problems, largely driven by poverty and disease, has a nexus in water. However, given the realities on ground, it will be necessary to quickly work to create the enabling structures to be able to manage change and complexities in the new world order, going forward. Adaptive technologies for freshwater provision, ICT and digitalization of our operations will receive new focus if we have to effectively and efficiently tackle the challenges and optimize our opportunities.
There is so much work to do but we’ll creatively prioritize and schedule our engagements. We’ll be disposed to strong partnerships and collaborations from anywhere in the world, for shared vision and benefits.
What are the key challenges in the sector?
Yes, there are indeed numerous challenges, even though related from a systems theory viewpoint. Many of them had been alluded to earlier in this interview, but at the risk of repeating myself, there is a high level of physical and economic stress in the provision of freshwater in Nigeria. From a weak organizational structure for the management of water resources, to poorly maintained or completely disabled infrastructure, poverty of technologies, inadequate financing, weak regulations, the challenges are just too many. An inadequacy of the specialized skills and technology needed for the management of the complexity presented, poor education and awareness coupled with a near total helplessness about doing the right things in a society afflicted with wide spread poverty are very fundamental in the challenge mix. Implicated in all these is a poor data and statistics culture that compromises effort at proper and effective planning and monitoring.
Water Management and access to water are critical to any realistic design and restructuring for development. How is Nigeria doing and organized?
It is not by coincidence that water is the central theme that connects all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, desirous of peace, growth and development in the world. In Nigeria, the direction for the management of the crucial element is set at the strategic level by the federal government. This is where all the major policy issues and strategic plans are made, to cascade down for corresponding actions at the State and Local Government levels. In the recent years, a frenzy of actions is being directed at the sector, maybe because of the threat of the 2025 scenario. Modest successes are being recorded but, in a country, as large and diverse as Nigeria, with a population closing in on 200m, it is no surprise that the system is being overwhelmed for the impact of any gains to be felt.
There are management systems at the lower tiers of government that seem to be in misalignment with those of the central government in the implementation of policies and plans and many of the cells work in silos, for any dedicated impact. From available facts on ground, there are clear issues at the tactical level due majorly to political and social factors, made more complex by a lack of capacity for diligence. The country has good policies for the attainment of the global SDG 6 and WASH program targets of the sector, but implementation has been facing a lot of challenges.
Much of the water used in Nigeria, for agriculture and hydroelectric power, come from dams operated by the Federal government. But in the reality of a near collapse of many water utilities for domestic piped water, rampant unregulated exploitation of underground water by large groups of citizens, and indeed government, through deep water boreholes is common place, for water whose quality is mostly suspect. Shallow borehole, stream water extraction and rainwater harvesting, very susceptible to contamination, are also widespread especially in rural communities. Most of the water consumed in Nigeria are exposed to all sorts of contamination factors and therefore would need secure extraction techniques and treatments, sometimes through expensive advanced technology methods, to bring them to standards acceptable under the World Health Organization. A sustained prevalence of water-borne disease conditions like in cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis and many others are a testimony to its largely compromised water. The W.H.O. statistic that over 80% of human diseases are water-borne gives an indication of the huge burden the country is carrying on its over 180m population. Standard clean water is scare in Nigeria and is expensive to buy, which makes the society very vulnerable.
What are the fundamental strategic changes needed in the management of the water resources in different parts of Nigeria and Africa?
Thank you for this question that will help me direct critical attention to the realities of change in society today. A lot of people are still stuck with an old management methodology that has largely become ineffective, without realigns that the world has moved on, for new skills and ways of work. Given the complexities of water resource management in a large widely differentiated society like Nigeria and indeed Africa, the need for a creative, flexible multi-disciplinary approach is an imperative. A so called Project Economy, for an advanced project approach to managing vulnerabilities, uncertainties, complexities, and ambiguities, typical of today’s world, is here. It requires new methods from a multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills base that delivers rapid value for benefits optimization. The strategic change will require intentional disruptions for people with new skills and mind set, working with systems in structures that effectively support developmental goals. Unfortunately, you cannot hope to eat omelette without breaking an egg. And to that extent, I dare say that this paradigm shift will require a strong political will for the right decisions to be made. It has been done in some African countries, to put their societies on a trajectory of growth and development by rapidly providing value-adding creative solutions to their peculiar challenges. We hope to collaborate with government to develop this capacity in Nigerians for effective and efficient management of the water sector.
Tell USAfrica readers across the world: who is Peter Onyeri?
I’m a multi-disciplinary Nigerian project professional and technocrat with specialist interests in water supply, safety management, business analysis and project management. I’m a pan-Africanist with a first degree in civil engineering and an MBA in project management, risk management option. With extensive exposures on special assignments around Nigeria, Africa and the world especially in the aviation industry where I’ve spent more than 35 years, and was once named as one of Nigeria’s top 50 professionals.
I’m a big-picture thinker and transformation specialist, who also serves Nigeria as a member of the economic think-tank, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG.
What’s your favorite quote?
Challenges are opportunities on the flip side, waiting to be exploited for growth and development.
Thank you, and best wishes.
