By N. A. Hassan (Mrs.)
The Hadejia valley irrigation project is one of the Federal Government Projects and is situated within Auyo, Kaugama, Miga and Kafin Hausa and Hadejia Local Government Area of Jigawa State, all in Hadejia Emirate.
It is situated between Hadjia and Kafin Hausa Rivers.
According to statements from the Managing Director of Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Development Authority, Kano, in the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Alhaji Abdullahi Dahiru Kila, is a multi-purpose project that supports crop production, livestock and fisheries development in the predominantly farming communities within the project area.
The Hadejia Valley irrigation project is one of the Federal Government irrigation projects under the Authority located in Hadejia, Jigawa State.
It could be remembered that the Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Authority was created in 1986 along with ten other River Basin Development Authorities by the Government of Nigeria under Decree 25. Presently, the Authority has the largest functional irrigation schemes among the twelve River Basin Development Authorities in the country.
The Authority covers an area of 45,000 km2 (whole of Kano and Jigawa States, and about two-thirds of Bauchi State) with an irrigation development potential of about 212,000 hectares within the Valleys of Hadejia and Jama'are Rivers. The Administrative Headquarters of the Authority is located at Hotoro, in Tarauni Local Government Area of Kano State.
The Authority is responsible for the development of surface and underground water resources for irrigated agriculture, water supply and other uses within its catchment areas in Kano, Jigawa and Bauchi States. The statutory functions of the Authority as contained in its enabling law as amended over time are as follows;
a. To undertake a comprehensive development of underground and surface water resources for multipurpose use with emphasis on provision of irrigation water.
b. To undertake schemes for erosion and flood control and for watershed management including afforestation and orchard development.
c. To construct, and maintain dams, dykes polders, wells boreholes, irrigation and drainage systems.
d. To provide water from reservoirs and lakes for irrigation purpose to farmers as well as urban and rural water supply.
e. To operate water legislation and control measures and development, and update water resources master plan of the area of Authority's development and management, and
f. To undertake jobs on contract basis for Federal, States and Local Governments and private clients.
The Authority operates four dams/reservoirs and six irrigation projects spread across the three catchment States.
The potential irrigable area of the project is 25,000 hectares divided into two phases for ease of construction, namely HVIP phases 1 and 11, each covering an area of 12,500 hectares of farmlands. The project was first awarded to Messrs BEC Fereres with phase 1 in 1981 with Haskonings Engineering Consultants as the project supervising consultant at a total contract sum of N75.0million. However, the contract was suspended in 1984 due to financial constraints.
Construction works on the project took off again in 1992 and was subdivided into two stages, phase 1, stage 1 ( about 7,013 hectares gross and 6,175 ha net of farmlands and phase 1, stage II is also about 5,500 hectares gross. It was awarded to Messrs BEC Joint Ventures on the contract tender sum of FF338million+N155millon under a bilateral arrangement between the Federal Government of Nigeria and French Government.
The contractor moved to site and commenced work on 14th April, 1992. Enplan Group was appointed as the Engineer for the project in July, 1992 to review the detailed design and supervise the project.
Work on the project was suspended again due to financial constraints in 1996 with only 1,979 hectares, feeder canal, main canal and head works completed. The completion of the remaining works, about 5,034 ha or 4,196 ha net area of the project was later taken over by the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund(PTF) in April, 1998 for review and re-award. But, with the scrapping of PTF in 1999, the project was transferred back to the Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Development Authority for completion.
The Managing Director also said, a contract agreement was signed again for the completion of phase 1, stage 1 i.e. 4,196 ha in December, 2001, with a construction company-CGC Nigeria Limited Aim Consultants serving as project supervising consultant at a cost of N5,908,243,535.04k.
The Managing Director also disclosed that the current contractor, Messrs CGC Nig. Limited has developed 3,331 ha of irrigable land so far out of 4,196 ha of phase 1 stage 1 awarded to him, and that a Revised Estimated Total Cost (RETC) of the contract for the completion of the project amounting to N9, 661,396,999.82k was approved by the Federal Executive Council in the year, 2010.
The Managing Director also revealed that the head works consist of a barrage 1 km long of earth fill diversion dam, 9.25 meter high across Hadejia River, bounded by a 12 km long South dyke and a 12 km long North dyke. The dykes, he said, were completed since in 1981 contract.
He also revealed that the storage pond has a capacity of 11.4million cubic meters of water. Its level at minimum supply capacity is at elevation 37.46m and 38.15m at maximum supply capacity. Maximum flood level is at elevation 38.25m. The main structures at the storage pond are: 15 nos. 1.83m x 1.83m off-take gates with a capacity of 30m3/sec; 6 no. 1.83m x 1.83m sluice gates with a maximum discharge capacity of 90m3/sec. for sediment exclusion and 5 no. radial sluice gates with spillway capacity of 150m3/sec.
Alhaji Abdullahi Dahiru Kila also stated that the feeder canal is a clay-lined trapezoidal canal in shape that conveys water from the storage pond to the main canal with base dimension of 19.8m, water depth of 2.4m and discharge capacity of 30m3/sec.
N. A. Hassan (Mrs.) is of the Federal Information Centre in Jigawa State.Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria