Tessy Igomu
When nature calls, even the mightiest of men must respond speedily. However, for several Nigerians, there is no inhibition when it comes to unloading this toxic human waste.
Sadly, this unbridled practice might, in October this year, get Nigeria infamously celebrated as the ‘Open Defecation Capital of the World’.
With this inglorious feather added to the nation’s cap, India will hand over the baton to Nigeria as the country with the highest number of citizens that defecate in open places.
Only last year, Nigeria was listed among the top five open defecation countries in the world. A report emanating from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Water Resources showed that 47 million Nigerians still defecate in the open. It also showed that the country rose from its fifth position in 2003 to take the second spot in 2015, coming closely behind India.
Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, while decrying the development said: “Nigeria will become the number one open defecation practising country when India, becomes open defecation-free in October. Access to sanitation has been on the decline, from 30 per cent in 2010 to 28 per cent in 2015. Open defecation has been on the increase and there was not a single local government in Nigeria that was open defecation-free.”
Adamu lamented that Nigeria was unable to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets for water supply and sanitation due to poor investments, low capacity and other challenges not limited to rural areas.
These factors were corroborated by the 2018 findings of Brookings Institute, where the World Poverty Clock rated Nigeria as overtaking India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million people living on less than $1.90 per day.
As distasteful and ugly as the act seems, baring it all to answer the call of nature, even when there are public toilets within reach, seems to have a special allure for street urchins, traders, drivers, artisans, children and travellers.
Daily, these individuals mill around bush paths, football fields, uncompleted buildings, school compounds, drainage channels, waterways, among others, to answer the call of nature.
In November 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari declared a state of emergency in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector. He also reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to eliminating open defecation by 2025. Despite the declaration, the 2018 National Outcome Mapping Report showed that more than 47 million Nigerians still defecate in the open, and that the country lost N455 billion (US$1.3b) annually due to poor sanitation. The losses were primarily pegged on premature deaths, health care costs, and lost productivity.
Presently, the question on the lips of concerned individuals is, how did Nigeria getwent down this road of infamy?
Reports showed that while the authorities idled away, Nigerians became too familiar with a society where sanitation and hygiene infrastructure are dysfunctional. On the other side, a proactive Indian government took the bull by the horns and introduced a programme tagged ‘collective behaviour movement for rural sanitation’.
In 2011, India reportedly conducted a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene census, and the outcome indicated that only 32% of her rural households had toilets.
In 2014, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, after his election, highlighted the goals of eliminating open defecation by 2019. His administration focused attention on bringing about behavioural change on a large scale and began implementing the world’s largest rural sanitation drive. He set up the Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission), to bring about the desired change.
Speedily, toilets construction gained momentum and over 4.5 million were constructed between October 2014 and October 2017. This translated into more than 243,000 (of India’s 650,000) villages, having toilets. 201 out of 677 districts and five of India’s 29 states were later declared Open Defecation Free.
By December 2018, just within 15 months, the figure moved up to 9.12 million toilet facilities in all. To ensure accurate data collection, the country’s Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, set up a real-time tracker on its website with a clicker that marked the completion of each facility built.
According to Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, RICE, India government channelled funds into hiring staff to mobilise communities around sanitation. Half a million community mobilisers – known as Swachhagrahis in India, were strategically deployed to villages and districts to actualise the government’s vision.
The Indian government, alongside its development partners, came to a conclusion that 96 per cent rural sanitation coverage has been achieved in four years. This is why UNICEF is optimistic that India might actually beat the earlier scheduled timeline of being declared open defecation free by October.
And once this happens, attention as to who wears the infamous garb would be turned to the country next in line — Nigeria.
Eliminating the practice in Nigeria, UNICEF estimated, would cost about N95 billion annually. The agency is also of the view that Nigeria could achieve economic gains as high as N359.1 billion (1.026 billion dollars) annually from the N455 billion it loses due to lack of sanitation.
As sordid as open defecation seems, it is not limited to rural communities alone as people are deep into the practice in slums tucked in urban areas across the country.
For a city like Lagos, the act thrives and is decimating laudable projects meant to add aesthetics to the environment. Despite the inherent health hazards of having human faeces exposed to the elements, it litters the streets indiscriminately.
Though there seems to be no definite answer to why it still thrives, some have blamed it on poverty and lack of government support in providing toilet facilities. Others, however, have argued that in places where the facility is available, the odd option is still preferred. For these persons, baring it all to answer the call of nature has a special allure.
Based on World Bank statistics and World Health Organisation (WHO) reports, open defecation leads to poor overall health and debilitating illnesses like trachoma, diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, stomach upset, hepatitis.
Regardless of reasons given to justify the practice, experts maintained that it remained a ticking time bomb, as improper handling of human faeces poses serious health challenges to sources of water supply, especially to women and children.
The 2016/2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, carried out in Nigeria by UNICEF, showed that defecating openly was still a challenge in urban and rural areas.
Also, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), in its advisory campaign, described open defecation as one of the major causes of cholera in the country, especially during the rainy season.
A top UNICEF official, Zaid Jurji, said one-third of Nigeria’s population still engaged in open defecation. He feared that the country might not meet the global target of 2030 for ending the practice.
UNICEF also estimates that about 122,000 Nigerians, including 87,000 children under the age of five, die every year from diarrhoea, intestinal worm infections, cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and other preventable sanitation-related illnesses.
Medical practitioners have warned that exposure to human waste make children susceptible to stunted growth, malnutrition and polio infection.
This is even as researches revealed that just a gram of faeces contains approximately 10 million viruses, one million bacteria and a thousand parasite cysts, while that of a child contains more bacteria than that of an adult.
Ijeoma Okpala, a public health expert, explained that with excreta likely to spread faster through flood during the rainy season, open defecation then becomes a ticking time bomb.
“When human wastes wash into sources of drinking water, it will enable epidemic. Soil-transmitted worm infections, transmitted only through eggs laid in human faeces, festers. It impairs the nutritional status of those infected, causing intestinal bleeding, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, dysentery, reduced absorption of micronutrients, poor intelligence quotient and, in extreme cases, death,” she said.
Reports revealed that Nigeria has a road map meant to make the country open defecation-free by 2025. For Global health agencies, Nigeria needs to launch a serious campaign against open defecation to attain Goal 6 of the United Nations MDGs by 2030. And for the country to be open defecation-free, the World Bank, estimated that about N2.88 trillion ($8.3 billion) would be needed.
Financial experts aver that the major challenge militating against eradicating the practice is the huge financial implication.
Although the Nigerian government is making conscious efforts to prioritise sanitation with the launch of Clean Nigeria, many aver that the results are not encouraging. They maintain that ending open defecation is not just about erecting sanitation structures or providing clean and safe toilets but changing people’s behavioural disposition to defacing the environment.
In the words of a public health advocate, “relevant government, international development agencies and civil society groups must embark on nationwide sensitisation campaign to promote proper sanitation and hygiene practice. The country is getting overburdened with too much negativity.”