DEFECATING in the house and going to deposit the excreta in rivers lining the neighbourhood is a common sight in most riverine communities. Checks showed that the residents in some cases go directly to the river to defecate, without feeling abashed about it. For them, it has become an accepted way of life. They stroll out armed with medium paint buckets, nylon bags and newspapers neatly used to package the faeces they had excreted in their various homes and head straight to the river that bounds the community.
Like short put throwers, they fling the wastes as long as their energy could muster into the river and without minding who was watching, they elegantly walk back to their homes. Beside the spot where they deposited their wastes is where the children in the neighbourhood always have their pleasure bath.
This was the situation when The Nation visited some riverine communities in Lagos and parts of Ogun State recently.
Some of the residents after emptying their bowels went and deposited the wastes in the rivers. Not minding what the effect of the rubbish that had been thrown into the river could be, the children who were swimming in the river took a competitive dive, splashing the polluted water at each other’s face in excitement. In the height of their ecstasy, some of the innocent children poured a handful of the water into their mouth and used a finger to scrub round it.
“We are bathing and catching fun. The excitement we have swimming in the river doesn’t make us to realise whether somebody is throwing excreta into it. We don’t have water supply that can make us bathe as often as we want, especially in this hot weather. We equally don’t have the opportunity to go to swimming pools to swim like our privileged colleagues. This is what we have and we would not hesitate to make good use of it,” one of the children said as he took a plunge back into the river.
Aside from bathing in the polluted river, checks showed that the river also serves other purposes for the residents who are mostly indigents. In extreme situations, some of the residents said they have had to drink the polluted water from the river. Much as this appears as fun for the children, findings revealed that the ugly development is a problem that has been eating up the adult residents of the riverine communities for a long time.
It was gathered that they have grappled with the challenge for many decades and have often paid dearly for it as some of them, the children in particular, have had to suffer myriad of illnesses ranging from cholera, diarrhea to other water borne diseases. In fact, medical and environmental experts who spoke with The Nation said the deplorable condition in the communities could have been responsible for the mysterious death of 20 children in Eti Osa Local Government Area of the state early in the year.
In most of the communities visited by our correspondent, a good number of the aged respondents expressed unreserved anger when they were asked to speak about their condition. It was like opening a chapter of their lives that they had closed and didn’t want reopened.
A resident of Ebute Iga, Chief Ibikunle Matimoju’s remark showed the frustration and how long the people have lived with this problem. The octogenarian told The Nation that as an infant, his mother used to put alum in the water to purify it before they could have water to drink.
“We have been in this deplorable condition long before I was born. We have been voting during elections as far back as 1954 when late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Benson were at the centre of political activities in this environment. Right from that time, politicians have been making series of promises to us, assuring us that they would provide solutions to our challenges but till date, nothing has been done.
“Aside from the government, several individual’s have always come here with other people to know what our challenges are and always promise to come back to do something thereafter but none of them has ever come back not to talk of doing anything to alleviate our plight.”
Regretting that his children and grandchildren have inherited the problems they were born with, he said: “We don’t have potable water. My mother used to fetch water from the river and to make it fit for us to drink, she would put alum in it. Back then, the river was not as bad as it right now. As I am speaking with you, we can’t dig wells or toilets in this area because before you dig a foot, water will be everywhere.
“This is why we defecate in our houses and go to the river to deposit them. I must confess that it t is not a cheering development. It is something that draws tears from our eyes because our children and grand children have come to inherit the problems that we grew up to know.”
If Chief Matimoju was sad by the development, 100-year-old Pa Salawu Sanni was visibly disturbed when our correspondent sought his view on the issue.
He noted that the community made conscious efforts to build a toilet for members of the community to avert the stench and health hazard associated with depositing human wastes in neighbourhood rivers.
“Our late traditional ruler did everything possible for us to build a toilet but it didn’t work out. As you must have heard, we don’t have toilets. We have paint buckets that we defecate in, in our homes. After doing that, we would go and pour it in the river. Our children bathe and swim in the river. What we have done is to tell them the portion they must not go beyond when they are swimming.”
Chief Lateef Eshinlokun, the traditional leader of the community, also expressed his anger about the plight of community.
“The problem we are going through in the community is borne out of the fact that they see us as common villagers who do not matter in the scheme of things. They would always come and ask for our vote but immediately we give them our support, they would turn their backs at us. Before I became the traditional ruler of the community, the agency responsible for environmental issues asked us to construct toilet. We made the move but we didn’t dig far before we encountered water.
“At a point, some officials suggested that we should have a tank where we would be depositing our excreta so that it would be removed from time to time. But before you know what was happening, there were cockroaches everywhere and people could not cope. All that didn’t work at the end of the day. We also attempted to dig a well but that also had its challenges. The water that came out was salty. We couldn’t use it to bathe because it is not good for our body.”
A visit to Ogolonto, another riverine community in the area also showed how the environmental challenge bedeviling the people is making life unbearable for them.
One of the residents who identified himself as Ogunsanya Bello said the difficulty in having a proper place to defecate has always put them in serious mess, adding: “Virtually all the houses in this neighbourhood don’t have toilets. We often go to the river to defecate. It is a huge challenge because the stench is always disturbing. Flies and cockroaches do feast on this excreta and later come to perch on our food. This has often caused all manners of sicknesses for the people. Some children end up stooling and vomiting.
“Aside from the challenge of not having appropriate places to defecate, the problem of water supply is also causing huge problem for us. We always have to buy water but all hands are not equal. Some people don’t have the means of buying water and because they have to use water, they take water from the river that we defecate in to take care of their domestic needs. They bathe, wash and in some extreme cases drink them. This also leads to huge health challenges, some of which may begin o manifest in future,” he said.
Akeem, a resident of Agboyi Ketu, appeared unruffled about the development as he said: “What is the big deal in bathing in the water that people defecate into? Ai mo iye igbe leko (There is uncountable faeces in Lagos). It appears you are just a new comer to this area because if you are familiar with this environment, you will not be perturbed about what you are seeing.
“When you are bathing in your house and you see a dirty object in your water, don’t you remove it and continue bathing? That is what happens here but we don’t remove the dirt be it faeces or anything. When you are swimming and you find any rubbish, you dodge it and move in opposite direction. The people that are supposed to be of help to us have abandoned us and we have created an alternative way to survive.”
Salau Jimoh, another resident of the area, however, expressed worries about their condition, adding that they face all manners of health challenges as a result of it. He said: “Typhoid, skin rashes and diarrhea are common sicknesses that happen here. Unfortunately, our people don’t link it with our state of hygiene. It is always worse for people that are new because their whole body system would be disorganised for sometime before they adjust.
“At times, some innocent young boys that have not known anything about sex contract gonorrhea in the course of bathing in the polluted water and because going to hospital is not part of us, they would always go and treat it locally. This could have serious reproductive health for them later in life but they are not aware of it.”
It was also a tale of lamentation at Ilase, a community in the suburb of Ogun State, as the residents narrated their difficulty getting potable water and appropriate place to defecate.
A prominent member of the community, Mathew Kehinde Alaje, said they were drinking the water in the neighbourhood river before now, regretting that they have lost every access to getting potable water thereafter.
“We are having problems getting water in this neighbourhood. Many of our people don’t have money to buy sachet water and therefore make do with what they see. This is very unhealthy for the people as it portends great danger to their health. The people in government are not concerned about our plight. They don’t even know that human beings are living here except when election is approaching.
“Aside from water challenges, many residents also have problems with defecating. Many landlords have attempted to dig soakaways but they ended up abandoning them because they ran into water shortly after they started. This makes it impossible for many to have proper places to defecate. It is worrisome because human wastes are not what you handle carelessly because of the health problems that comes with doing that,” he remarked.
“We drink, bathe and wash with any water we can lay our hands on because it is not all the time that one has the money to buy water. It is even worse now that the economy is extremely inclement. We go into the bush to defecate because, as you must have heard, we can’t dig soakaway because water comes out as soon as you begin to dig the soil. Just imagine how the blind people in the community will be defecating.
“Think about how disabled people in the area who crawl would manage to enter the bush to defecate. Don’t you think that before they would have crawled from their houses to the bush, they would have ended up using their bodies to mop the feaces on the floor? Or would somebody that is on wheel chair move the wheel chair to the bush or river to defecate? It is a serious mess we at hand,” Biodun, a resident, said.
Alhaja Basirat, another resident of the area, recounted that previous attempts to construct borehole in the community have yielded no fruits.
“A politician came and gave us a borehole some years ago but it didn’t work. The whole thing is just there. There was also another one that was dug within the premises of our mosque. It brings out water but you can’t use it for meaning things. There is also another one that a corporate body did in a neighbouring community when they were promoting their detergent. They abandoned it after sometime. Through the efforts of the people the borehole has started working but the water it brings out would turn a white container to red within a short time of fetching it. We are suffering from both ends and dying in silence.
Environmental/ medical experts speak
An environmental expert and Director Corporate Accountability and Administration, Environment Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FOEN), Akinbode Oluwafemi, bemoaned the condition of the people lamenting that the coastal belt is under siege.
“Nigeria coastal belt is about 853 kilometers long. That area of our country has suffered enormous environmental challenges as a result of industrialisation and activities of extractive industries. If you take a look from the Niger Delta side, you will find that there have been oil spills, gas flaring, marine pollution as a result of heavy vessels that come to the state end up in these rivers. Besides, we also have the discharge of all sorts of chemicals into these rivers. All these compromise the environment.
“The environment in the riverine communities has actually been subjected to a state of siege. There is just no way that the environment can be tolerant of those things and it makes adaptation difficult for the people. In February, 20 children were killed in Eti Osa Local Government Area. Initially people attributed it to a strange disease. But it was later found out that it was measles. So you can link a lot of things going on in the riverine areas with sanitation, water and poverty. There is acute water problem in Lagos State but it is worse. There are some places where the water coming from their boreholes is mixed with petrol and they are drinking it like that,” he said.
Taking a medical look at the condition of the residents, Dr. Rotimi Adesanya, a public health physician, said: “The residents are bound to suffer enormous health challenges because flies would always perch on their excreta and move on to perch on their food. When they eat food that flies have dropped their larva on, they would be susceptible to suffer from diseases like cholera, typhoid that is endemic. They are also prone to suffering from Hepatitis A and B viruses, skin diseases like measles.
“Aside from the human wastes that are dumped in the rivers, the wastes constantly dumped in the rivers by various companies are also capable of causing skin problems called dermatitis for the people. Consuming salty water by the people can cause dehydration and make them drink a lot of water. Salty water is concentrated and can cause high blood pressure for the elderly residents in the communities.
“It can worsen the health condition of those that already have the sickness. Where the water enters their mouth and body system in the course of bathing in the polluted rivers, it can cause diarrhea, stooling and vomiting, especially for the children. It is also capable of causing dysentery an abdominal pains for them.”
For the residents that are consuming well water, Dr Adesanya has this to say: “Well water contains a lot of chemicals and this can cause electrolyte imbalance. Some of this water is contaminated by mercury which is poisonous to human body and capable of causing untimely death. Some of them also contain lead that could make the children not to be performing well in school because it causes mental retardation.”
Solution
Proffering solution to the challenge, Dr Adesanya advised: “The residents must work together to get a proper way of disposing off their wastes. The various governments should also make their presence felt in these communities to bring about behavioural change. They should also endeavour o build health centres in these areas to take care of their health needs.”
Akinbode on his part said: “The people should act by rising to demand that water should be made available to them because they bear the burden of the environmental problem of our development. Developed countries take coastal areas as assets but the coastal belt in Lagos is an apology because everywhere you place your feet, you will step on human wastes.
“Digging boreholes is not the solution to the problem because this has its own environmental challenges too. There are about 25 water works in the state and from Marina, most of these riverine communities can be served safe water because the distance is just about few kilometers apart.”
Efforts to speak with the Commissioner for Environment in Lagos State, Mr Adejare Babatunde, were unsuccessful. Thereafter, our correspondent reached out to the public relations officer of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) who after seeking to know the purpose of the enquiry asked him to come on Thursday to speak the Director General (DG).
The meeting did not also hold as she said the DG was in a meeting, adding: “The issue does not fall within the purview of what LASEPA does. It is the ministry of environment that can speak on it.”
However, the commissioner for the environment at a recent retreat organised to review and consolidate on the draft of the Lagos State Water and Sanitation Policy (WASH) in preparation for its presentation to the state executive council promised to ensure a speedy implantation of the policy. He also expressed optimism that an implementation of the policy will lead to decline in childhood mortality.
“Through the WASH policy, we are teaching mothers to be more hygienic and to use safe water to provide food for their babies. The number one killer of children is diarrhea, so if we take care of the safe water part of it, that would lead to decline in the death of children,” Dr Adejare submitted.
Speaking after the death of 20 children suspected to have died of measles early in the year, the Commissioner for Health, Mr Jide Idris, also said: “The state government is conducting mapping of all slum areas in the state toward reducing the health hazards associated with such areas.”
