The Adiyan Waterworks, located in Oke-Aro in Ogun State, is one of the largest water treatment facilities in the region. It draws from the Ogun River and is capable of producing a substantial volume of treated water daily. On paper, its existence in Ogun State might suggest that the state's water supply challenges are partially addressed by its presence. In practice, the plant primarily supplies Lagos State.
This situation is not entirely unusual in infrastructure planning. Large facilities are sited based on physical geography, where water sources are, where land is available, where transmission corridors are feasible, and on the political and economic decisions that determine who the primary beneficiary will be. Adiyan sits where it does because the Ogun River is there. It serves Lagos because that was the design intent and the investment rationale.
For the communities surrounding the plant in Ogun State, the presence of a major water treatment facility on their land while they remain underserved by its output is a pointed illustration of infrastructure misalignment. They live with the land use and logistical footprint of the facility, access roads, river abstraction, the industrial character it gives to the area, while receiving little of what the facility produces.
This pattern, where infrastructure assets and their benefits are distributed across different political jurisdictions, is common in large water systems. Rivers do not follow state boundaries, and the facilities built to harness them do not always serve the communities closest to them. Recognising this misalignment is important, not to assign blame, but to identify where additional investment and equitable service design are needed.
