A Statistical Trend Analysis of Urban Water Access in Nigeria, 2000–2024: Implications for Infrastructural Governance and Basic Service Delivery
Keywords:
Urban Water Access, Infrastructural Governance, Basic Services, Statistical Trend Analysis, Spurious Correlation, Sustainable Development Goal 6Abstract
Access to safe and reliable drinking water is a critical dimension of sustainable development and effective infrastructural governance. This study examines the trajectory of urban water access in Nigeria between 2000 and 2024 and assesses whether changes in water access are statistically associated with selected governance-related indicators. Annual secondary data from the World Bank World Development Indicators were analyzed using descriptive statistics, ordinary least-squares trend regression, the Mann–Kendall test, Sen’s slope estimator, Pearson correlation, Augmented Dickey–Fuller and Durbin–Watson diagnostics, detrended and first-differenced correlations, and leave-one-out sensitivity analysis. Urban access to at least basic drinking water services increased from 68.72% in 2000 to 95.08% in 2024, with a strong positive linear trend (β = 1.13 percentage points per year, R² = .999, p < .001), while access to safely managed drinking water services increased more gradually (β = 0.75, R² = .987, p < .001). Although urban water access was strongly and negatively correlated with government expenditure on education during 2012–2024 (r = −.955, p < .001), the association disappeared after detrending (r = .05, p = .876) and first-differencing (r = .05, p = .875), indicating that the observed relationship was driven by opposing time trends rather than a substantive fiscal association. The relationship between water access and women’s parliamentary representation was weak and statistically non-significant (r = −.10, p = .652). The findings demonstrate substantial improvement in reported urban water access but provide no robust statistical evidence that the governance indicators examined explain this trajectory. The exceptionally high trend fit also warrants caution because the underlying international water-service estimates are modelled and interpolated. The study highlights the need for functionality-based monitoring, transparent WASH-specific expenditure data, and greater caution in interpreting national access indicators as evidence of infrastructure delivery or governance performance.
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