About 25 percentage, or more than 47 million Nigerians lack access to toilet facilities. The majority are in rural areas, where many poor people can’t afford to install toilets in their homes. The result is defecating in bushes and fields, leading to contaminated water supplies and spread of diseases.
In such, only 14 out of 774, local government areas in Nigeria are open defecation free, authorities say the practices is more prevalent in the north central states, including Abuja, the capital.
Some 87,000 young children in Nigeria die each year from illnesses linked to open defecation, poor sanitation and hygiene.
Recently, I was in a state in Nigeria stayed about a month within the neighborhood where open defecation is been practice, right behind my yard, there is a canal behind us where people both young and old, boy and girls, man and woman use as their toilet.So, you are wondering what is open defecation, could this practice still have been in place these century Open defecation is defined as the practice of defecating in open fields, waterways and open trenches without any proper disposal of human excreta.
I have once noticed within the town, how houses are been marked down because of toilet but people take no regard in preparing enough facility to ease their comfort, but I could believe until it was practice right behind where I stayed. Of which I choose not to condemn but to tell few folks I caught the danger and effect of such practices, which will follow the thread of this article.
Despite 15 years of conjunctive efforts under global action plans such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targets for improved sanitation were not met, resulting in 2.5 billion people not having
access to improved sanitation facilities (flush latrine or pit latrine) and nearly 892 million of the total world’s population still practicing open defecation. As a result of this failure to successfully ensure basic sanitation it was once again highlighted as a key issue in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Number 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to “Ensure availability all”, where Target 6.2 aims by 2030 to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.
Though, this practice has been reduced in last 5 years due to the implementation of SDGs in some sub arid Africa country, when this was introduced UNICEF and WHO together with some philanthropist like bill gate did a lot in providing sufficient and modern toilet facilities in these regions .
Though It is not as if Nigeria has no plans to end open defecation. In fact, there is a road map that is supposed to make the country open defecation-free by 2025. But it does not just end with setting targets; all hands should be on deck to ensure that this uncivilised culture becomes a thing of the past.
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