The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says no fewer than 40 million Nigerians still defecate in the open.
The Chief of UNICEF Field Office, Enugu, Dr. Ibrahim Conteh disclosed this on Friday in Enugu during a ‘One Day Media Dialogue’ organised in collaboration with Broadcasting Corporation of Abia State.
The event was organised in commemoration of the 2021 World Water Day with the theme: ‘Valuing Toilets’.
Conteh said that it was worrisome that the rate of open defecation in Nigeria had remained high in spite of seeming efforts by stakeholders to reduce it.
“According to new figures soon to be released on Nigerians’ access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services, the rate of open defecation has remained steady at 23 per cent.
“As many as 46 million Nigerians still defecate in the open,” he said.
He named the states with the highest rates of open defecation to include Kwara, Plateau and Ebonyi while those with the lowest rates are Abia, Zamfara and Akwa Ibom.
Conte, however, said that there had been some progress on ending open defecation with 71 out of the 774 local government areas in the country declared open-defecation-free.
“Nigeria is making some progress in improving access to WASH services to its population with 75 per cent of Nigerians having access to basic drinking water services in 2019.
“Access to sanitation (toilet and hand washing facilities) has also increased modestly from 44 per cent to 46 per cent over the same period,” he said.
Conteh said that more needed to be done to ensure that all Nigerians had access to safe toilets in order to move closer to the goal of ending open defecation by 2025.
In a lecture, the WASH Specialist, UNICEF, Enugu, Mr Doutimiye Kiakubu, said that toilets and the sanitation systems that supported them were underfunded.
Kiakubu said that the prevailing circumstance could cause outbreak of deadly diseases.
He said that 47 million Nigerians practice open defecation, adding that the figure had remained the same for the past two years.
On access to basic sanitation in the South-East region, he said that Ebonyi and Enugu had the worst records at 14 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.
He also said that the two states also had the worst records on access to safely managed sanitation in the region, adding that Ebonyi had seven per cent while Enugu stood at 17 per cent.
On the population practicing open defecation in the five South-East states, Kiakubu gave the records as follows— Abia (76, 000), Anambra (391, 000), Ebonyi (1.7 million), Enugu (1.7 million) and Imo (620, 000) persons.
“The volume of work that needs to be done to achieve open-defecation-free Nigeria by 2025 is enormous,” Kiakubu said.
In a goodwill message, the Special Adviser on Water Resources to Enugu State Governor, Mr Anthony Onyia, said that the state government had done much to provide decent toilets and safe water to residents.
Onyia commended UNICEF for its efforts to ensure that the state became open-defecation-free.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had in November 2018 declared state of emergency in the WASH sector and launched a national campaign tagged: ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet’.
The campaign was aimed at initiating the country’s journey towards becoming open-defecation-free by 2025.
