The availability and safety of drinking water and the environmental quality of life was investigated in five cities located in an oil-producing area of Nigeria using questionnaire-based scales, discussion and laboratory tests. Polythene-packaged sachet water and commercial and non-commercial private boreholes largely met the drinking water requirement of the cities. Consumption of sachet water was high (14.0-20.0 points vs. 25.0 points) but regression analysis indicated strong negative relationships with income group ([beta] = -0.75, P less than 0.005) and educational level ([beta] = -0.77, P less than 0.005) of respondents (658). Private borehole water was prevalent (18.7-19.9 vs. 20.0) while public water supplies were almost non-existent (4.8-5.6 vs. 20.0) in the cities. Vulnerability to contamination in all water sources was indicated following unacceptable counts of total and faecal coliform bacteria in 10-62.5 and 3-25% of samples, respectfully. Respondents were not satisfied with environmental quality of life indicated by the quality of housing, school, health services, refuse disposal, recreation, streetlight, transport and police (3.43-4.01 vs. 10). It is concluded that modernization and industrialization due to the oil and gas industries, tended to increase individualization to the negligence of common services as evidenced by the preponderance of private boreholes and sachet water.