ONE of Nigeria’s current dismal statistics is that between 40 and 90 million people rely on open defecation. Nigeria follows India which is on record as having the most persons easing themselves in the open. As awkward as open defecation may sound, most societies started with open defecation, but many societies outgrew this culture as they became more knowledgeable about effect of such conduct on the health of citizens and as they developed the technology to manufacture modern toilet systems. What is shameful about this activity in the 21st century is that Nigeria has been unable to liberate almost half of its population from reliance on easing themselves openly, even decades after coming across the tools of modern sanitation.
It is, therefore, not surprising that President Buhari has ordered that the federal government, states (including local governments), private organisations, and private households provide modern sanitation facilities, to end the practice of using open space as toilets and to advance towards meeting the target of achieving universal sanitation before 2030. The President’s intervention on this matter, though in order, must not stop at that.
There is a need for comprehensive study of the problem so that the country can achieve a holistic solution to this national handicap. Just as the World Bank had observed and the president had reaffirmed, the loss of N455 billion annually from a habit that also puts the country in shame must not be continued. It is even possible for the country of 200 million people to create sustainable jobs, gain new technology, and even become an importer of sanitary equipment, if the governments choose to bring the spirit of revolution being given to agriculture to sanitation.
Just as it was done with agriculture, there is need for widespread consultation and town/village meetings on how to turn investment of public and private funds into sanitation a profitable move nationwide. Unlike in India, where some communities have expressed spiritual opposition to modern toilet, there is no indication that there are groups in Nigeria that are culturally averse to the convenience of modern sanitation, given the length of lines of persons struggling to use public toilets where they exist.
It can be argued that the reason Nigeria is number two on the list of countries that fail to provide standard sanitation for their citizens is principally attributable to sharp inequality. And the country’s inequality manifests in many ways that include poor infrastructure, poor knowledge on the part of the deprived, and lack of interest on the part of government and the private sector to invest in sanitation as an economically viable project. Bringing modern sanitation to the country requires heavy investment in infrastructure that will support modern toilet system, while the private sector can be incentivized through loans to provide factories to create all the goods and services for sustaining modern toilet system that can replace the traditional system that still defines the toilet culture of most citizens.
It is a no brainer to say that there can be no effective sanitation without water. Even in the urban areas, middle-class citizens take loans to drill boreholes in their yards while lower-middle class individuals buy water from borehole entrepreneurs, which they ration for toilet use and cleaning. If the bulk of our middle-class have no access to public water or public-private water, it should not be difficult to imagine why people at the economic bottom of the ladder go through, not only in the rural areas but also in urban communities. For example, travelling on the bridge to Apapa exposes travellers to modern version of open defecation under trucks parked on the bridge. It is, therefore, important for the government to invest more actively in provision of water in both urban and rural areas.
Recently, I went with a family friend, a respected retired professor of economics at Ife and later a top researcher at the African Development Bank in his active years and almost collapsed when I saw water around the Ero Dam. With proper assistance, water from Ero Dam can meet the needs of people in rural and urban areas of the state and parts of Ondo or Osun states. From the little I know about hydrology, Ekiti is one small state with a big dam that can be turned into a model for the rest of the country on the importance of water to sanitation. And similar dams can happen in many parts of the country to remove one major constraint in providing or sustaining flush sanitation. We may also choose to store rain-water for toilet use to supplement in communities without rivers that can be dammed.
In addition, whether it is from boreholes or dams, electricity is crucial to pumping water to where individuals need to use modern toilets. Advising poor people about the importance of modern toilets and the danger of open defecation may not go far enough in a country like ours. Proper investment needs to go into provision of electricity and water, if the enthusiasm of ridding our country of the stigma of open defecation is to yield results. What is the percentage of Nigerians that can turn on a generator to activate a bore hole and increase water pressure to pump water, in order to use the toilet whether such people live in urban or rural areas? Illustrations of the damage that lack of electricity and water does to efforts to provide modern public toilets can be experienced in many of the few government-owned public toilets available. Toilets in many universities are unusable when such universities are unable to provide regular supply of water.
Further, the behaviour modification needed to sustain a new toilet culture can be provided most effectively by state and local governments. With or without assistance from the federal government, subnational governments ought to fund the social advocacy needed to make our people yearn for new and higher sanitary standards and turn the average citizen in cities and villages into stakeholders in this new social revolution and business. Before outlawing open defecation, it makes sense to engage in a nation-wide health education programme targeted at children, adolescents, adults, and senior citizens. This is one social campaign that we must not get wrong. It should be in the languages of the people, standard English, pidgin and with high doses of support from traditional and social media.
To our hardnosed capitalists, there is huge money to make from the ‘sanitation chain.’ Six factories in the six regions for production of toilet bowls, bath or shower systems, and other gadgets like toilet papers can complement government efforts to provide water and electricity. Bank of industry should be primed to consider the sanitation industry a major one that calls for assistance. The more food security we have in the country, the greater the danger for its citizens, if the current open defecation culture continues. So, feeding the citizens well must be accompanied with providing better chances for them to ease themselves in dignity. This industry can also create jobs for plumbers and other allied workers.
Those in building constructions can also get more contracts once the government chooses to drive this harmless social revolution. Locally produced sanitation supplies should be more affordable than imported ones from China or Taiwan. To move from existing homes without modern toilets will require special incentives from state and local governments. No state should be given the opportunity to call modern sanitation a federal project, so that it would not suffer the fate of many federal roads. Subsidising the cost of toilet bowls to enable so-called landlords across the country should be a part of the thinking on moving the current primitive and self-demeaning toilet culture. Indiscriminate use of public space as toilet is dangerous to all and requires on everybody’s past, but more responsibility lies with the governments.
Transitioning to modern toilet system is not going to come cheap for anybody, from government to the average citizen, but having a big dream, such as President Buhari expressed in his statement through Vice President Osinbajo recently in respect of private households installing modern toilets, will require more investment from government and public minded entrepreneurs. Defecating in the public is what is on the urgent agenda of WHO agenda, soon urinating in public may join. It is possible to kill the two birds of the problem with one stone.
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