The need for more toilets in Nigeria
Owing to inadequate toilet facilities, many Nigerians, especially in the rural areas, still patronise the bush to answer the call of nature. Health officials say this has continued to hurt the desire to promote basic sanitation habits. With this in perspective, many experts are already pessimistic that Nigeria would not meet the Millennium Development Goals […]
Owing to inadequate toilet facilities, many Nigerians, especially in the rural areas, still patronise the bush to answer the call of nature. Health officials say this has continued to hurt the desire to promote basic sanitation habits. With this in perspective, many experts are already pessimistic that Nigeria would not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on water and sanitation by 2015. With barely six years to this target, reports by the Joint Monitoring Report (JMP)– a team assessing the achievement of the MDGs — said recently that Nigeria was “not on track to meeting the goal on sanitation’’.
The JMP, whose members are from the WHO and UNICEF, said that if the present pattern of water coverage continues, only 74.8 million out of the estimated 170 million people, would have access to water from improved sources in 2015. The figure, the report said, represented 52.7 million people short of the MDG target for water.
“If Nigeria continues at the current rate, only 57.8 million out of the estimated 170 million people will have access to improved sanitation facilities in 2015,’’ the report said. The report further showed a wide disparity in both water and sanitation coverage among the six geographical zones of the country.
For example, the North East Zone has the least access to safe drinking water, while the South West has between 51 and 100 per cent coverage. According to the report, the South East, South-South, North Central and North West, recorded between 51 per cent and 75 per cent. Silvia Gaya of the JMP headquarters, New York, is particularly sad at the water and sanitation situation in Africa
“The rest of the world appears to be on course toward meeting the MDG target on water by 2015, but sub-Sahara Africa, which constitutes one-third of the World population, is still very slow. “We are actually afraid that it may not meet the target at the current rate speed,’’ she says.
Gaya says that the situation is particularly critical in the rural areas, where eight out of every ten houses, are without improved sources of water and sanitation facilities. Gaya notes that sanitation has worse records as about 2.5 billion people, a majority of who are in sub-Saharan Africa, remain without improved sanitation facilities. She says that about 1.2 billion people still practice open defecation. “If this trend continues, the MDG sanitation target will be missed by more than over 700 million people in sub-Sahara Africa,’’ she warns.
Dr Abraham Onugba, the team leader, Water and Sanitation Monitoring Platform (WSMP), notes that two out of every five people in sub-Saharan Africa without sanitation are Nigerians. This situation, he says, is an indication of Nigeria’s very precarious situation. “Nigeria, as the sixth largest oil producing country, has commendable human and material resources to meet the MDG target on water and sanitation. “All it requires is the political will, urgent sector reforms, increased investments, and harmonisation of donor agencies’ activities,’’ he says.
Mr Omojugbagbe Omoniyi, WSMP’s communication specialist, says the CSOs and NGOs are pivotal to effective monitoring of Nigeria’s progress toward MDG targets on water and sanitation.
He notes that the country’s poor record of decline in access to improved water supply from 34 to 30 per cent in rural areas and 80 to 65 per cent in urban areas between 1990 and 2006, could be improved upon through active participation of all stakeholders, including CSOs.
Mrs Josephine Akagwu, Campaign Manager of Sanitation for All, an NGO based in Port Harcourt, says there is the need to promote public-Private Partnership (PPP) to accelerate progress in meeting the targets. Akagwu, however, notes that the harsh reality as it concerns Nigeria and the West African region, is that less than 40 per cent of the people have access to acceptable facilities for the safe disposal of human waste. “In some of Africa’s overcrowded cities, human excreta is disposed of in plastic bags and thrown into ditches, open spaces, drains and open sewers. “In the rural areas, less than a third of the people have access to toilets that efficiently separate waste from drinking water. “It is clear that the practice of `open defecation’ is fast becoming the practice.
“This is unhealthy and not a dignifying practice; it goes against the ideals of social development and the result of such act could be deadly’’ she says. The consensus is that Nigeria needs to build more than eight million toilets before 2015 to achieve sustainable sanitation and hygiene. In essence, Nigeria requires at least one million toilets annually across its 774 Local Government Areas.
Worried by the unfavourable statistics, Mr Bai-Mass Taal, the Executive Secretary, Africa Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW), has advised Nigeria to move water/sanitation from the back burner and make it a top priority. “If people are aware that the cost of not investing in sanitation is far higher than investment in sanitation, they will sit up.
Mr Oluwole Omotoso, a sanitation expert, says the best way to meet the sanitation target is for civil society organisations to adopt effective strategies that would mobilise the entire society.
(NANFeatures)