Why Is Kano’s Water ‘Thick Like Coffee’?
This article is co-published with Nigeria Health Watch, a division of the Health Watch Foundation’s not-for-profit organisation dedicated to advancing health outcomes in Nigeria.
KANO, Nigeria – Little did Muhammed Khamis know that the water supplied to his home by the Kano State Water Board would make him and his three children gravely ill. When he contracted cholera, the 55-year-old resident of Tamburawa, in Kano State’s Dawakin Kudu Local Government Area, spent days battling relentless vomiting, diarrhoea, and severe weakness.
Over several weeks, Khamis spent more than ₦60,000 ($45) on treatment and medication.
Even after the worst symptoms subsided, one question remained: how had the water he paid ₦2,500 ($1.88) a month for left him ill, financially drained, and fearful for his children?
“It has been over a year since I last saw water that looked fit to drink,” Khamis said, describing the water flowing from his taps as brownish, foul-smelling, and filled with visible particles.
When Tap Water Turns Brown
Across Tamburawa, Tassa, Gaida, Panshekara, and other parts of Kano metropolis, residents lack access to a clean, safe, and reliable water supply, even as billions of naira are allocated to improve it.
Hamisu Hussaini in Tassa community, also in Dawakin Kudu, described the water reaching his home as “thick like coffee.” “The smell is so bad that bathing in it leaves me feeling unwashed.”
Hussaini added that “residents have largely stopped complaining because the same water board workers who deliver the water collect monthly fees and disconnect households that fail to pay.”
On September 13th, when Nigerian Health Watch visited Challawa Water Works, one of Kano’s three major water treatment plants, officials denied access to the facility. An anonymous source familiar with the plant later alleged that the government had not consistently supplied treatment chemicals to the plant for the past 5 months.
The source further alleged that the occasional supply of clean water to residents was made possible by water treatment chemicals donated by Mamuda, a private company, and that water quality deteriorated once the chemicals were exhausted. However, this claim could not be independently verified.
Shuarau Hamisu Garba, a tiger-nut juice seller, said she sometimes has to suspend her business for days or weeks because she cannot risk using discoloured water to make the juice. She treats some of the water with WaterGuard by adding a capful of the chlorine-based product to 25 litres of water to disinfect.
Conflicting Test Results
On September 10th, 2026, Nigerian Health Watch submitted a sample of muddy household water from Gaida Quarters in Kano Municipal to the Microbiology Laboratory at Murtala Muhammad General Hospital. A lab technician who examined the sample expressed concern about the visible particles and asked where the water had come from.
The laboratory results, released about a week later, declared the sample clean and the water deemed to pose no health risk.
Nigerian Health Watch commissioned Grand Consultancy Ltd to test a second water sample collected from the same locality on September 17th. The results differed from the hospital’s findings. Although the sample had a normal pH of 7.50, tests detected 50 colonies of total coliform bacteria per 100 ml and more than 100 MPN of E. coli per 100 ml. The report concluded that the sample “DOES NOT MEET drinking standards.”
The conflicting results raise questions about the water’s safety, the reliability of the testing procedures, and where possible contamination may have occurred in the supply chain.
Health expert Abba Isah said E. coli at such levels could indicate faecal contamination, potentially exposing residents to waterborne illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, and cholera.
For Kano, unsafe water is a longstanding public health concern. A peer-reviewed study recorded 16,461 cases and 547 deaths in the state between 2010 to 2019, with an overall case-fatality ratio of 3.32%. The study also identified 18 of Kano’s 44 Local Government Areas (LGAs)as cholera hotspots, accounting for almost 4.9 million people. The relative risk of cholera in hotspot LGAs was almost three times higher than elsewhere in the state.
In 2022, USAID, through Partners for Development, launched a three-year, $3.5 million Water Improvement and Sanitation Enhancement (WISE) project in Kano and Jigawa states. The project aimed to construct or rehabilitate 30 water points and install 55 sanitation facilities, benefiting over 66,000 residents.
However, in Kano, the intervention focused on rural communities in Gezawa and Karaye LGAs, outside Kano metropolis, leaving the city's persistent water supply challenges largely unaddressed.
Where Did the Money Go?
A review of Kano State’s six budget performance reports shows sharp fluctuations in water-sector funding. In mid-2025, the state increased its water-supply budget by 54%, from ₦17.89 billion ($11.3 million) to ₦27.63 billion ($17.5 million). The reports do not explain the reason for the increase.
The increase was uneven. Staff salary allocations remained unchanged, while capital spending on infrastructure and major projects rose by 53%. Overhead costs, which cover day-to-day administrative expenses, increased by an alarming 138%. The government spent 110.6% of its revised overhead allocation, exceeding the budgeted amount. In other words, the state is spending more money on running the water system than on improving the infrastructure residents depend on.
By the second quarter of 2026, overhead spending had reached 120.2% of the annual allocation.
By the end of the first quarter of 2026, less than 1% of the budgeted capital funds had been released — the lowest rate in the 18-month period reviewed.
In May 2026, the state announced a ₦21.89 billion ($16.06 million) contract with Chinese companies to rehabilitate the Tamburawa-Challawa water system. By June, capital spending had reached 10.1% of the annual allocation, still a small proportion of the announced investment.
The government said ₦9.9 billion($7.26 million) would go to Challawa and ₦11.99 billion ($8.80 million) to Tamburawa. However, a separate report on the contract allocated ₦9.9 billion ($7.26 million) to Tamburawa and 11.39 billion ($8.36 million) to Challawa and Goron Dutse.
The pattern of little or no funding released for projects in one period, followed by a sharp increase in the next, is not unique to the water sector. Similar fluctuations appear in other Kano State capital budgets, including those for the Protocol Directorate and primary healthcare.
Determining how the money was spent is also difficult. The state’s first-quarter 2026 expenditure table was published as a hard-to-read image, requiring the figures to be reconstructed page by page. The Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning has yet to publicly explain or reconcile the discrepancy.
The Kano state governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, said the rehabilitation aims to restore water-production capacity and improve supply to Kano metropolis and surrounding communities. He has also announced plans for solar-powered boreholes in underserved communities.
But project approval, contract awards, fund releases, and completed infrastructure are separate stages. For residents, the ultimate test is whether these projects deliver water that is safe, reliable, and affordable.
On September 14th, Nigeria Health Watch filed a Freedom of Information request with the Kano State Water Board seeking records on contractor payments, contracts, water-quality test results, maintenance and residents’ complaints related to the ₦21.89 billion ($16.06 million) rehabilitation of the Tamburawa and Challawa facilities. We also asked for the break-up of water infrastructure in Kano, citing the budget data showing that only 31.5% of the revised 2025 allocation for water-supply projects had been spent, while just 0.6% of the 2026 allocation had been released by the end of the first quarter.
The Freedom of Information Act requires a response within seven working days, but the board had not responded by the time of publication.
Escalating Costs
In Sabuwar Madina, Jaen, and Makera communities in Gwale LGA, unreliable piped water has fuelled the growth of an informal water-vending economy. Vendors such as Auwalu Ibrahim and Ruslanu Ahmed make several trips daily, selling water in jerrycans for about ₦100 ($0.07) each. Abdulrahman Bello, chairman of water vendors in Jaen, said more than 30 carts can gather at his fetching point in a single day, as residents increasingly depend on vendors.
Abdulrahman said residents often turn to vendors because they cannot rely on the public water system. For businesses that need large quantities of water, the cost can quickly add up.
Mustapha Ibrahim, who runs a laundry business in Kwanar Ganduje, said his 13 workers use about 72 jerrycans of water a day, costing him ₦7,000 – ₦8,000 ($5.14 - $ 5.87). He said running the business was easier and cheaper when tap water was available, but he now relies on vendors to keep the laundry operating.
Nigeria is committed to Sustainable Development Goal 6, which seeks universal access to safe water and sanitation. The United Nations estimated that 2.2 billion people globally lacked safely managed drinking water in 2022. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, 39% of households in Kano lack access to clean drinking water, while 51% lack access to proper sanitation.
Kano’s reluctance to invest in water infrastructure has triggered a public health crisis, leaving residents to choose between potentially contaminated tap water and costly treated water.
