How Nasarawa community pipes water from mountain top

She was among the many children of the community that climbed two kilometers up a mountain to fetch from a natural spring water source. Today, her grand children drink from the same water source, but at their doorsteps as the spring water is harvested and piped down to Ancho.
Ancho, an ancestral root of the Mada people, sits almost at the Nasarawa State border with Kaduna State, and is tucked in-between the famous Mada Mountains. The sleepy community that witnessed scores of women walking kilometers up the mountain top to fetch water from a spring are now drinking from the same source without the tortuous climb.
Dr. John Michael Abdul, a philanthropist who hails from the community is the brain behind the ingenuity which has now piped the natural spring water about two kilometers down the foot of Ancho mountain. No electricity is involved in this project as Ancho and the many other communities around it do not have such luxury.
In Ancho, the people have water taken right to their door-steps through a gravity system that does not require electricity to pump the spring down to the community on the foot of the mountain.
It took days to lay the pipes, Daily Trust learnt from villagers during a visit. The project which will be two years soon has turned the tides as Ancho people have not recorded a day without water since the introduction of the project.
The only interruption was when nomads herded their cattle across the pipelines in what saw the animals trampling on the provision, damaging the pipes at one point.
“One afternoon, water suddenly stopped running. We traced the pipeline to discover it was broken at a point not too far from the source,” said Mr. Sunday Gambo, the village head who led our reporter to the top of the mountain where the spring water sits.
According to him, the spring water has three sources within metres of each other. The community’s women used to climb the mountain to this point to fetch water.
“But Dr. John Michael Abdul told us one day that he has an idea; our wives and mothers and daughters will not climb the mountain again, to fetch water. God has blessed him with an idea which will take this water to the community,” Gambo said.
He pointed at a construction and said: “That is the point where the spring water was harvested, and piped down to us at the foot of the mountain.”
Two of the three sources were harvested, leaving the third to run for the consumption of animals, including cattle as those mountains form part of the greenbelt cherished by grazers.  
The construction is a large chamber which the village leaders say was dug almost 10 feet down, and about six feet radius wide; enough to harvest good quantity of the spring water and funnel the content through the two-kilometre long pipeline, down into two large overhead tanks placed at the village square. The overhead tanks, serving as reservoirs, are placed on a construction that has raised them to roof-heights, such that it is easy for the content to flow naturally through another stretch of pipes, to a platform provided with four outlets to serve community members without them having to queue. There is also another stretch of pipes from the reservoirs conveying the water to another platform provided for washing.
Daily Trust observed that the reservoirs were overflowing with water all through the period this reporter was in the village.
Ancho community youth leader, Philip D. Peter Gando, said: “We have no control of the natural abundance of the water from the spring source. It flows from the ground all year round. The reservoirs cannot collect all of the water coming from the source, even if thousands are provided. So they overflow with excess water.”
He said periodically, the community empties the reservoirs and clean them up in the chain of maintenance that goes with the supply.
The youth leader, whose team of youths are saddled with the responsibility of supervising the utilisation of the project for the purpose of reporting to the village head, who then makes periodic reports to Comrade Musa Ibn Dan Galadima, an aide to Dr. Abdul, said the community is protective of the project which has made Ancho an envy of Nigeria’s big cities.
He said when their report gets to Dr. Abdul about the damage on the pipeline, earlier in the year. “Within hours, Dr. Abdul sent a team of plumbers from Akwanga town, running down to Ancho. The repair was done, and supply was restored immediately.”
Mama Blessing, the octogenarian who happens to be the oldest member of the community alive tells the story of Ancho’s earlier days. She said: “I have lived this long to tell this story. Our people could not move far from these mountains because of that water source you just visited. We never thought it is possible for us to get water without climbing the mountains. Today, that is possible because we have a son that cares. He has our blessings to go places.”
The community said Dr. Abdul, Nasarawa’s immediate past deputy governor instructed that he does not need praises over the project. “He said glories should go to God who provided him with the finances and idea for the project to help His people,” a woman at the village said.