In this report, PAUL OKAH writes on open defecation and the attendant health challenges faced by residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is as landlords and the authorities charged with providing toilet facilities in residential areas, schools have failed to perform.
A first-time visitor to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would be pleased by the attractive edifices scattered all over the city centre. However, once he settles in and takes a walk around the city, especially in the satellite towns, he would be confronted by the realisation that open defecation is the order of the day in the nation’s capital.
Although the menace of indiscriminate urination and defecation is more prevalent in the satellite towns, they are common in the major streets in areas like Gwarinpa, Jabi, Maitama, Wuse, Utako, and Garki, while market places, motor parks, green areas, drains, and bus stops have become easy-to-reach toilets in the absence of alternatives.
Areas like Area One Roundabout, Garki, Okonjo-Iweala Street in Utako, Julius Berger Bus stop, Mabushi Roundabout to mention just a few, have gained notoriety for this.
Tenants’ nightmare
Being a developing city, the FCT has a number of suburban areas or settlements like Kugbo, Nyanya, Kuje, Dutse, Gishiri, Karu, Dei Dei, Zuba, Mpape, Karshi, among others. These areas have a large concentration of houses erected for low income earners, who come to the city centre from nearby Mararaba, Masaka and Keffi in Nasarawa state or communities in Niger state to work.
Therefore, as a result of their poor economic status, landlords erect houses without toilets for the tenants to occupy or for hundreds of tenants in a compound to share few toilets, thereby risking different types of infection.
Coping
Taking Kugbo, for instance; the settlement is made up of artisans who can’t afford decent accommodations. Houses here, which residents refer to as “batchers” are constructed with tarpaulins, woods and zinc for blocks on stony surfaces.
There is no provision for toilets or bathrooms, as many residents go to the bush to defecate and bath in twilight. Living in houses without toilets, tenants find a means of easing themselves whenever they have to answer the call of nature. However, when they get pressed at odd times, the “parcel and throw” method comes handy, as they can easily defecate inside a polythene bag, parcel it in a neat way before disposing same in a nearby bush.
Water ministry’s reaction
On Friday, May 17, this year, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources stated that no less than 50 per cent of FCT residents defecate openly, because of the non-availability of public toilets.
The ministry’s director, Water Quality Control and Sanitation, Mr Emmanuel Awe, stated this based on a survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Norms.
Speaking at the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) meeting with head teachers of primary schools in the FCT, Awe said the meeting coincided with the efforts of the ministry to improve access to water and sanitation in the country.
He said efforts of the federal government to end open defecation practice included the inauguration of the Open Defecation Free Roadmap by 2025, and the “Clean Nigeria, Use a Toilet” campaign.
He said, “It is very sad from available data from WASH Norms that the North Central part of the country has the largest population of open defecation practices and Abuja is part of it. It is worthy to note that we are all affected by open defecation practice one way or the other. Even if you don’t practise it, your driver or people around you do it. So, we must all rise up to change the culture of open defecation.”
WASH lends voice
Similarly, WASH ambassador Ms Ebele Okeke said sanitation and hygiene are central to the health of children and the socio-economic development of the country.
Speaking on Friday, May 17, at a WSSCC meeting with head teachers of primary schools in the FCT, Okeke said the meeting was a call to action on the need for safe drinking water, basic sanitation and hygiene, adding that no fewer than 50 per cent of schools lack sanitation facilities.
Okeke pledged the commitment of the WSSCC to continue to lead advocacy to scale up access to potable water and sanitation for the benefit of school children.
“It is clear that the challenges posed by sanitation and hygiene in schools can only be successfully addressed through the collaborative efforts of parents and teachers of the children,” she said.
WSSSC reacts
Reacting to the development, former National Coordinator WSSCC Nigeria, Dr Priscilla Achakpa, said maintaining proper sanitation and hygiene in schools is very important to increasing lifespan and reaping economic benefits for them and the society.
She lamented that many schools, markets, places of worship, hospitals do not have access to clean and adequate toilets, but said improving WASH conditions would spur economic development, increase productivity in girls and women and also reduce mortality and morbidity rates.
“Many school children practice open defecation as a result of poor condition of WASH in schools, inadequate water, and separate toilets for boys and girls. Hand washing is also non-existent. Sanitary disposal and hand-washing facilities in schools discourage children, especially girls, from attending school full time during their menstruation and force some to even drop out from school,” she said.
UNICEF’s statistics
On Wednesday, May 22, this year, UNICEF stated that not less than 47 million Nigerians still indulge in open defecation in the country.
WASH specialist of UNICEF, Mr Bioye Ogunjobi, said this in Kano at the opening of a two-day media dialogue organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with UNICEF.
He said out of the 47 million people, North-central region has 53.9 per cent which constitute 15 million people making it the highest region practising open defecation.
Ogunjobi said the South-west has 28 per cent; North-east has 21.8 per cent, North-west 10.3 per cent, South-south 17.9 per cent, while South-east has 22.4 per cent.
He said only 64 per cent of Nigerians have access to basic drinking water services, 42 per cent to basic sanitation services, while only 20 per cent have fixed place for hand washing with soap and water.
Ogunjobi also said only six per cent of Nigerian schools have basic gender-sensitive WASH services, while five per cent of Nigerian health facilities have basic sensitive WASH services and only 12 per cent of markets and motor parks have basic WASH services.
Ogunjobi said UNICEF was engaging the services of the media because they were key partners in the campaign, adding that the people had to know the health implications of open defecation and that UNICEF had plans to put an end to open defecation by 2025.
“Forty-seven million people in Nigeria are still practising open defecation. ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet,’ is a campaign by UNICEF to ensure that Nigeria is clean through the use of toilets. However, this campaign is designed to address not only open defecation, but also people with unimproved toilets.
“In Nigeria today, 11 per cent of Nigerians suffered diarrhoea in the past six weeks and 76 per cent are children under the age of five. And this diarrhoea is the second largest killer disease in Africa,” he said.
Teachers lament
A cross-section of head teachers in public primary schools in the FCT has expressed concern over inadequate provision of toilet facilities in their schools, leading to open defecation by pupils.
Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of a WSSCC meeting held in Abuja on Friday, May 17, this year, some head teachers said the total neglect of the sanitation and hygiene needs of the schools in the nation’s capital is appalling.
The head teacher of Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School, Kugbo, Mrs Rose Ikemefuna, said the growing population of the pupils came with increasing demand for more toilet facilities.
She said no form of renovation has been carried out on schools and their toilet facilities in the last 30 years, calling for immediate intervention to change the narrative.
Ikemefuna also said, with the absence of perimeter fencing around the schools, community members usually find the school environment suitable for open defecation.
“We want the FCT Education Secretariat to come to the aid of the school. They visit us always to ask for challenges. We tell them, but nothing has been done. Children come to school: no water, no toilet; how do you want them to ease themselves when nature calls?” she said.
On her part, the head teacher of LEA Primary School, Iddo-Sarki, Mrs Ozioma Iwunor, said in her school, only two toilets were available for no fewer than 1,000 pupils.
“Even me, as a head teacher, I have to empty my bowel before leaving the house, because we don’t have toilets at all. The one here cannot be used, because it has become something else. We have written to the authorities to come to our aid, but nothing has been heard from anyone. We hope this meeting would bring succor to the school children,” she said.
Infrastructure concerns
Also speaking, the head teacher of LEA Primary School Kagini, Mrs Khadijat Shuaibu, said the lack of basic infrastructure for learning militates against effective teaching.
She said members of the host community use the school environment as dump sites, and called for the construction of perimeter fence to halt the practice.
She said, “The main challenge of non-availability of toilets, no chairs and tables, no learning materials among others, is alarming. The community members also are not helping us. When we close for the day, they jump into the classes to defecate inside. They throw refuse at the back of the classes, we need help soon.”
Looming epidemic
Confirming the health risk open defecation constitutes, health and environmental experts said several illnesses that are presently ravaging various communities resulted from open defecation.
According to a WASH specialist, Mr Saaondo Anom, over 113 million Nigerians relieve themselves in the open, because they lack sanitation facilities.
Anom, who was speaking during a workshop organised by UNICEF and WASH in Enugu, said the problem is further aggravated by the fact that about 63 million Nigerians lack access to improved sanitation.
While these persons are relieving themselves in the open, he said they release over 10 million viruses into the environment, which are responsible for several illnesses that are presently ravaging various communities.
“Do you know that a teaspoon of shit, or in other words a lethal dose, just one gram of human faeces, can contain more than 10 million viruses, one million parasites, 1000 parasites cysts and 1000 parasites eyes? One can only begin to imagine the amount of infections we voluntarily release into the communities, which in turn come to harm us,” he said.
Collaboration needed – AEPB
In an exclusive interview with Blueprint Weekend, the director of Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), Baba Shehu Lawan, said the Board has been tackling the issue of open defecation frontally, but that a collaborative effort was needed to arrest the menace.
Speaking through his Head of Information and Outreach Programme Unit, Ibrahim Muktar, Lawan said that it was the corporate social responsibility of private and public organisations to make their toilet facilities open to be used by residents, especially in the FCT.
He said locking up toilet facilities against the public is a disservice to the nation, as the collective image of the country will be tarnished before the world when citizens arbitrarily engage in open defecation.
Lawan said the FCTA set up a committee in 2018 to tackle the open defecation menace in the nation’s capital and that the committee had reached an advance stage in its report.
“It is not majority of FCT residents that engage in open defecation. As you know, many workers come to work in Abuja from suburbs in Nasarawa and Niger states. Once they are in the FCT, when pressed, they have to look for the nearest uncompleted building to ease themselves.
“Therefore, we have mounted advocacy programmes for owners of hotels, plazas and business areas to make their facilities open to the public. We cannot necessarily compel them, but it is the social responsibility of corporate organisations to lend a hand in tackling open defecation by making their facilities open to the public.
“The objective is to avoid the negative stigma of being labelled a country that engages in open defecation by the outside world, because such businesses are existing and operating within the country and therefore not in isolation. Once they do that, there will be no need for FCT residents to engage in open defecation.
“In any case, the AEPB is making a case for the construction of public toilets in strategic places within the FCT, because open defecation is linked to poverty and contributes to the high rate of infant mortality. It is also as a result of ignorance and has cultural leanings, because many of the people engaging in the act within the FCT are used to doing that back in their various homes,” he said.
UBEB reacts
Reacting, the director of FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB), Dr Adamu Noma, told this reporter that the Board was working on providing facilities for public schools in the territory.
He said: “There is no way a school will complain to us about lack of facilities like toilets, furniture, potable water or anything else and we will come here and keep quiet. It is not possible. In our action plan, we know that many schools are lacking facilities, so they have been captured. Within the next three weeks, we will start working towards ensuring that facilities will be provided for many schools.
“However, I must point out that these things take time. Someone cannot just come and complain today, whether it is genuine or not, and we will rush to award contracts. Every contract has to follow due process, especially as it has to do with funding. You can’t run away from it. There are only few cases when you can do emergency procurement, like when the roof of a school is blown off and the students don’t have where to stay.
“So, at the moment, we are waiting for the procurement processes to be completed and award letters given to the contractors so that they can move to site and provide facilities to many FCT schools. We will tackle them one after the other, because we have so many schools in the FCT. We have 620 LEA primary schools, 169 junior secondary schools and 378 Early Childhood Care Education, so there are more than 1, 000 schools in the FCT needing our attention.”
Continuing, he said: “There is no way we can address all these challenges at the same time, but we are addressing them. Before September, many of the problems will be addressed, especially the renovation of some schools. In a nutshell, the complaining head teachers are ignorant of the system. They think that once they complain about a particular thing, it will be provided immediately. Government does not work that way. Due process must be followed. We have many challenges and have to prioritise our resources. For instance, we are aware that the LEA primary school in Kugbo is being threatened by erosion and needs landscaping.
“Some schools lack fence, others need toilets, while many others need more classrooms, so we have to prioritize. In some areas, communities do their best by helping government to erect structures, while government will come in and provide classrooms as a way of partnership. Discouragingly, many communities wait for government to come and do everything for them, which is not supposed to be so.”
