The federal government has commissioned a 1.8 million cubic metres storage capacity, Okuta Dam, in Baruten local government area of Kwara North senatorial district to feed at least 100 hectares of irrigation farmlands.

This was coming few months after the federal government commissioned the upgraded Malete dam and Agba water works in the same senatorial district of Kwara state to boost agriculture production and other purposes.

The projects were initiated and completed by the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority.

Speaking at the two-day commissioning of the dam, a project office and some other completed projects in Ilorin, the Minister of Water Resources, Engineer Suleiman Adamu, said that the federal government has so far “constructed 260 dams across the country and impounded 34. billion of cubic metres of bulk water in dam reservoirs for multi-purposes”.

The minister, represented by the director, River Basins Operations and Inspectorate of the ministry, Mr. John Ochigbo, described the dam as a “critical national asset”.

Engineer Adamu, who urged the people of the Okuta community, who are predominantly farmers, to take advantage of the potentials of the dam to boost all year farming production, regretted that despite the federal government’s efforts to improve potable water supply to Nigerians, national access to the water supply is only about 70 per cent, which he said is below the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) target of 100 per cent by the year 2030″.

This, he attributed to a “variety of factors, among which are under-utilization of impounded water in the dams, reservoirs, inadequate funding, low private sector participation and low level of investment in the sector”.

Also speaking, the managing director, Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority, Dr Adeniyi Saheed Aremu, emphasized the economic importance of the project, saying that, “I see great potentials in this completed dam and urge the people of Okuta to leverage on its potentials for socio-economic development, including the provision of more food, attract investors and create more jobs”.

Emir of Okuta and permanent chairman, Baruten emirate council, Alhaji Abubakar Sero Idris, expressed delight that the commissioned dam will go down in history as the first-ever federal government project to be commissioned in the town, assuring that the community was willing to make available more lands for development.