Magashi Bashir, Executive Director, Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management Commission, has warned Nigerians against indiscriminate drilling of boreholes in the country.

Mr Bashir made the call on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the call was necessary as drilling multiple boreholes in areas where blasting was taking place could be hazardous.

Mr Bashir said that Nigeria was not in an earthquake or mobile zone, but people were drilling a lot of boreholes around the basement complex where blasting was taking place close to the basement.

“When blasting occurs, there is a lot of waves sent into the ground. These waves will look out for openings in the ground and once they meet with boreholes, they just open up. That is exactly what happened in Mpape, Abuja recently.

“People won’t understand until it happens. In most houses, when you find cracks in the walls of the buildings, from up down, it’s an indication of a fracture, it means that there’s a place already opening and ready to give way in the ground.

“Estate owners should incorporate centralised water systems and also acquire licences to back up such water systems,” he said.

According to Mr Bashir, this has brought down a lot of buildings as people are not even aware and did not take such things into cognisance except those in the field, like geologists.

“Abuja is in the basement complex, although it happens both in the sedimentary and basement complexes.

“Estates should build centralised water systems where they can distribute water from and come up to license themselves for such water use.

“The revenue they pay are negligible, but government uses the revenue to build infrastructure and do other things that further develops the country,” he said. 

(NAN)