As tanker drivers, others lament lack of toilet facilities
By Chioma Obinna
When the report of the 2018 WASH National Outcome
Routine Mapping, (WASH NORM) Survey declared that 47
million Nigerians defecate in the open and that Nigeria
ranks No.1 in Africa and is 2nd in the world among
countries practising open defecation, some Nigerians
dismissed it as mere statistics devoid of empirical
evidence.
But investigations by Good Health Weekly around Mile 2
and Apapa areas of Lagos prove the report right.
Open defecation is widespread in these areas. From Orile to
Maza-Maza and 2nd Rainbow stretch of the Oshodi/Apapa
Expressway to Coconut, it is commonplace. The absurdity
in the practice by tanker drivers, touts, motor park boys and
traders etc leaves much to be desired. In the mentioned
areas, public toilet is luxury.
Oshodi-Apapa expressway
Anyone pressed anywhere along this stretch there is only
one commercial public toilet within reach.
The overused convenience located at Mile 2 Bus Stop
adjacent the Benin City bus terminal, daily serves thousands
of commuters, travellers among other users.
Residents and workers with offices around this axis and
passers-by often have no choice than to eas themselves by
the roadside or in between the road on the culverts.
It is common sight to see a full grown adult defecating
openly even as motorists and other commuters go about
their normal activities.
The stretch from Mile 2 Bridge to Tin Can has become an
eyesore as a result. The routes have remained in the news
for many wrong reasons including traffic gridlock , armed
robbery, pickpocketing among others.
Passers-by say the indiscriminate disposal of faeces has
become more worrisome. Commutters driving or walking
around the vicinity usually have their hearts in their mouths,
not knowing if they would step on some discarde excrement
or other dangerous objects among the heaps of refuse
littering the road.
Situation is now so bad that disposable plates popularly
known as take-away plates are used to defecate.
Even the uncompleted railway project along the axis is not
spared. All parts of the rails are filled with faeces. Yet
people eat and sleep there.
When it rains, passers by navigate through the flood
andmix with the faeces as they head for their
destinations. The beautifully built gutters have become
septic tanks. A visit to the area by Good Health Weekly
shortly after a downpour, revealed that the stench from the
gutters as a result of faeces and flood around the area was
disgusting.
Some truck drivers and their assistants who spoke told
harrowing experiences.
“We are going through difficult time and defecating openly
is the least of our problems,” Musa a trailer driver stated.
“You are talking about faeces, have you asked us how we
sleep and eat on this road? We eat, defecate and sleep
here. In this smelly environment, we must eat whatever we
see; we don’t bathe because we cannot go back to our
homes.
“If we say we want to go to the toilet, where do we go?
How many public toilets have you seen along the road? ” he
queried.
Another driver who simply identified himself as Lekan said:
There are faeces everywhere because people have to eat
and if they eat, they must defecate. When you are
permanently on the road and there are no public toilets,
where else do you defecate except on the road or nearby
bush? We cannot trek back to Mile 2.”
At the popular Benin Bus terminal at Mile 2, some travellers
who also decried the environmental condition of the area
told Good Health Weekly that open defection was no longer
a new thing in the area.
One of them, Mrs. Edna Uwaje said: “Many people in these
areas no longer have shame. I cannot use the public toilet
because of my safety. We have lots of armed robbery
cases around here. As a lady, you may be harassed. The
security here is poor.”
Uwaje, however, added that the government should provide
more toilet facilities in the park and make them free.
“The fee attached to the toilet is too much and there are
not enough here. Many people cannot come and queue for
just one toilet compartment but if they are many and
strategically located at different locations here, I believe
more people will use the toilets,” she said.
Confirming Uwaje’s position, another woman who is a petty
trader told Good Health weekly, that there are few mobile
toilets around but most of the operators are not friendly.
Further findings revealed that people are defecating in the
open due to the high charges.
“This is the only commercial toilet at this terminal; people
don’t use it because of the high charges. To pass urine
attracts N50 while to defecate is N100, another traveller,
Mr. Ikhazobor said. The activities of these tanker drivers
and others who defecate in the open contribute to the high
percentage of people practising open defecation across the
South West geopolitical zone of the country.
Implications:
Studies have shown that careless handling of faeces is
dangerous to health. One gramme of fresh faeces from an
infected person can contain around 106 viral pathogens,
106–108 bacterial pathogens, 104 protozoan cysts or
oocysts, and 10–104 helminth eggs.
A medical epidemiologist, Dr. Ope Osibogun, said open
defecation can lead to diarrheal diseases in children which
make them vulnerable to malnutrition, stunting and
opportunistic infection such as pneumonia.
It exposes members of the public to various infections such
as cholera, schistosomiasis, trachoma, shigella, typhoid,
hepatitis A, polio, amoebic dysentery, giardiasis, ascariasis,
hookworm infection, tapeworm infection.
According to the UNICEF Water and Sanitation, Specialist,
Mr. Bioye Ogunjobi during a two-day Media Dialogue on
Clean Nigeria: Use The Toilet Campaign supported by the
European Union and Ukaid , Nigeria needs not less than two
million toilets annually between 2019 and 2025 to achieve
the target of universal poor sanitation. Nigeria’s current
delivery of improved toilet is approximately 160,000per
year.
Stating that hygiene and water are responsible for the
frequent episodes of diarrhoea and other water-related
diseases, Ogunjobi said over 100,000 children under age
five die yearly due to diarrhoea of which 90 per cent is
directly attributed to unsafe water and sanitation.
The practice of open defecation has an economic, social
and health impact on national development as Nigeria loses
about N1.3 per cent (N455 billion) of her GDP annually to
poor sanitation and a third of that cost is as a result of
open defecation.
According to the WASH NORM report, one in four Nigerians
defecates in the open, while one in two persons in the
North Central defecates in the open. Out of the 47 million
practising open defection, 16 million are from the North
Central.
In the views of the Acting Coordinator, Use the Toilet The
Campaign, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs.
Chizoma Opara Nigeria has ranked second globally among
10 countries with the highest number of open defecation
since 2015.
Opara said to get Nigeria out of the situation, the country
under the campaign has established a national Road Map to
end OD by 2025. “Already, Nigeria is studying the strategy
being implemented by India to get over 550 million of her
population out of OD.
Disclosing that only 13 local governments out of the 774
Local governments have been free from open defecation,
she said the campaign and other partners have concluded
arrangements to scale up the programme.
On the fees being chargeon public toilets, she said for the
toilets to be functional a stipend must be attached to it to
sustain it as well as pay those maintaining and running the
place. “We are looking at a Public-Private Partnership
arrangement to provide toilets across the communities. “We
have started discussing with some private organizations on
how they can take up WASH as social cooperate
responsibility. We are also building a business around
toilets,” she stated.
However, although President Mohammadu Buhari recently
declared an emergency in water sanitation, health watchers
are of the view that without making access to toilets in
public places including markets, motor parks and highways,
as well as creating awareness to change the behaviour of
the people, the dream of the country to be open defecation
free may be a mere dream.





https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/07/in-mile-2-apapa-open-defecation-thrives/

Too bad

Ambode sef