Folks! I stumbled on this column in Daily Trust Newspaper this morning and couldn't hold my breath, hence the need to share with every body.

Source:   

http://173.193.92.172/dailytrust/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27584:do-not-urinate-here&catid=24:star-feature

Chei! Oyinbo with their black mail tactics self. Is this report true or false? if yes, how do we curtail this menace.

For those who can not access the site, here comes the full aticle.

Tuesday, 13 September 2011 05:00 Boco Edet .inShare.0SocButtons pluginIn Nigeria,

it is common to find people urinating in public. Many are no longer shy or embarrassed about undressing slightly, and exposing what should be ‘sacred’. Our reporter investigates this new habit which is slowly turning the country into one large urine factory.

Abaniwonda
Remember Al-Mustaim Alade Abaniwonda? The late Lagos politician whose death was controversial because there were conflicting reports about how he died? While some newspapers said he committed suicide out of frustration after he failed to win a senatorial seat, others said his death was an incident.

If you paid particular attention to those who described his death as incidental, you would have learnt a simple lesson. Do not urinate in public places.

According to reports, Abaniwonda was pressed after a trip to the bank on the Lagos Island. He rebuffed the advice of his driver to wait till they get to the CSS Bookshop building located on Broad Street. He rather instructed him to park, stood by the express to pee, somehow slipped and drowned when help was not forthcoming.

You may wonder how someone of that repute would feel comfortable exposing his privates in public. That is, if you were a visitor to Nigeria. For the remaining over 150million of us, Abaniwonda’s act did not defy reason. It was only logical. Nature called and he answered with immediacy. It did not count that he was offending other road users and polluting the environment with his urine.

It is likely that since his sad death, millions of Nigerians have urinated in public places and thousands have stood at that very same spot where he lost his life to do the same thing that cost him his life.

33 million Nigerians defecate in the open

The UNICEF says an estimated 33 million Nigerians still practice open defecation in different parts of the country.

Dr Suomi Sakai, UNICEF’s Country Representative and Chief Ambassador, said this recently at the commemoration of the World Sanitation Day in Abuja.

“The most worrisome of all the unsanitary practices is the high rate of open defecation practice in the country.

“It is estimated that about 33 million Nigerians defecate in the open, depositing about 1.7m tonnes of faeces into the environment annually,’’ she said.

Sakai said that the development had resulted in a high level of contamination of the environment, in which garbage and faeces often find their way into water resources.

Sights you’ve seen

The road is busy; cars are parked on each side. Pedestrians are walking briskly on the side walk and hawkers are trading. Then from the crowd, one young, properly dressed and obviously educated man diverts from the road. He unbuckles his belt, removes his privates from his trousers and starts to form the rainbow curve with his urine. He even frees his other hand to remove his mobile phone from his shirt’s pocket to answer a call. Once through, he takes his time to properly tuck in and returns the phone to his pocket. It is just like everything on that street froze and he was standing in his toilet.

It just rained cats and dogs. The market is messy with mud everywhere. A child walks up to his mother who sells vegetables, tells her he is pressed. She stops trading to pull down his shorts and directs him to the path where visitors pass. Just as he is about finishing, a woman passing by, slips, and is covered in mud and the young child’s urine.

Most Nigerians are confronted daily by these sights of people urinating in public, when they are not the participants. No place is off the limits- markets, highways, beer parlors, houses. Just anywhere would pass. It is not a social taboo.

People are no longer bothered by decency and decorum where exposing their privates to urinate is involved. This is ironic because by comparison, Nigerians are still much closeted about discussing sexual issues.

If the urine was just a visual nuisance, perhaps it would not be so much of an issue. But these acts pollute the environment. Sometimes, after many people have urinated in a particular spot repeatedly, the stench becomes unbearable. It does not help if it is near gutters. This cannot be healthy for any human being.

No laws against public urination

The federal or state governments for that matter are yet to enact a law making public urination crime. At the rate with which the act is becoming rampant, one would think it would be a matter of urgency. Lagos state government made an attempt recently when Governor Babatunde Fashola vowed to prosecute Lagosians caught urinating and passing faeces in public.

Governor Fashola said he was unhappy about the degradation of the environment by some Lagosians, and the government would no longer fold its arm and allow such act continue unabated.

As commendable as this is, until governments at all levels make laws and by-laws against public urination, mere condemnation would remain political statements.

Last Wednesday, the BBC reported a student was fined 100 pounds after urinating on the Derry peace bridge in London. Aaron McGeogh, 19, from Glenabbey Square, pleaded guilty to committing the offence of indecent behaviour on the bridge on 29 July. Police were contacted about a crowd of young men “drinking and urinating” on the bridge. A member of the public identified McGeogh as one of the group to police. The judge said he could not have picked a worse place to urinate in public. He said this is because the citizens of Derry are very proud of the peace bridge, and it was no surprise that members of the public reported this to the police.


Bringing the situation back home, such a judgment being passed is hardly conceivable. This is because the student would not get reported in the first place, as public property is regarded as no one’s property.

In many areas in the United States, public urination is a crime. Such laws are primarily governed by state and local laws, which vary by jurisdiction. It is possible to be charged with littering, public nuisance, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, or other law, if the locality doesn’t have a law specifically addressing public urination.

Policing ‘offenders’

I visited Wuse market in Abuja and noticed that signs were written on the wall ordering people not to urinate there, as breaking the rule would attract a fine of N2,000.

That side of the market is particularly notorious for the stench of urine. It is the section where banks are located. Once, I stopped to use one of the ATMs at Intercontinental Bank and it took the grace of the Almighty to survive the experience. Everyone on the queue held their breath until they left.

So, the signs on the walls were a welcome improvement, if they were being obeyed. I decided to find that out for myself. I stood to observe from a point adjacent to the fence housing Intercontinental Bank, where one of the signs had been put up. Within five minutes of my patient wait, three men had come to urinate at the exact spot where the warning was written.

They would walk briskly to the spot, keep looking sideways like a thief about to snatch something and he wanted to be sure he would not be pounced on, then they would remove their privates to hurriedly pee and quickly walk off , after that adjusting their trousers in transit.

After it was evident, no one was following the rules; I decided to speak to the private security officers who were supposed to be responsible for enforcement.

Mark Abbas, Suleiman Zakari and Musa Dantani who are the guards at the bank put a new spin on the whole matter. They said putting the sign on the wall has not been effective, because before they reach the spot to catch the offender, he has finished.

When I asked what the purpose was of writing such sign if it would not be enforced, they said it only served to reduce the number of visitors to the spot.

Abbas even tried to see reason with such offenders, explaining that toilets in the markets were not many and too expensive. In the public toilets at Wuse Market, payment to urinate is N10.

“Let us say I come to the market with N350 and my transportation is N300. Let us say I have to urinate thrice that day, are you saying I should spend N30 out of the N50 I have left to do that? Then the distance to the toilet is far, especially when you are really pressed. As a sales boy, you tell your boss you want to ease yourself then you start walking a distance, he would be scared you probably took his money and went to hide it,” Abbas said.


After speaking with the private securitymen, I went out again to observe. This time, I would wait for them to finish urinating, then approach them posing as a plain clothes police officer to ask them to pay the fine.

A young man simply identified as Chinedu was my first offender. After he finished easing himself, I walked up to him and demanded why he had done so when there was a sign warning against such act.

His reply was, “What do you want me to do? Do I hold it? I was pressed. I did not even see the sign. Next time I would take precaution.”

I pointed at a public toilet and asked why he did not wait till he got there, to which he replied, “I could not have held it.”

When I confronted the next young man who stopped there to ease himself, he managed to drag me away from the spot to his shop in the market under the guise of trying to offer an explanation, when he was actually making sure he was far removed from there, so I could not claim the N2,000 as fine.

He admitted it was wrong for him to have urinated in the public, but explained that “it is the rainy season so the rain would wash it off. If it was dry season I would not do it. I know how I take care of my home.It is not good.”

Ossy was the most meticulous of the bunch. He strutted to the spot, eased himself and then took his time to tuck his shirt in.

Upon confrontation his reason was that he did not have change to go to the public toilet.

“I was pressed. I did not have change. One time I went there with N100, they did not have change and the next day when I went to collect the change they claimed they could not remember owing me. I know it is not right.Next time I would not do it again,” he said.


In the 30 minutes or so that I was there, only one woman stopped at the spot to help her son urinate. When I inquired why she was doing that despite the warning she apologized and said he was a small boy who was pressed, and she did not read the sign.

But just before we concluded our conversation, another man who had stopped there to urinate, nose poked to say the warning should have been put on a signboard and not just written on the wall, so it would be visible. As though that was what made it right for him to ease himself there.

I was very alarmed when I watched a mentally disturbed man stop by the spot to urinate. Whereas others backed the road users, he faced the road, removed his privates to ease himself. He focused on watching the urine, and while it lasted never raised his head to look at passersby who were walking off, embarrassed at the sight or simply staring in horror.

A visit to the toilets

I was still looking for an excuse for these young men I had ‘caught’. Even though they did not say it, I felt perhaps the toilets were too dirty and smelly for their use. So I decided to check the situation out myself.

I paid N10 to ease myself, walked into the toilet and for a public place especially a market where Nigeria’s multi-cultural people congregate, I was impressed. There was no sight of faeces in any of the toilets not in use. It just smelt of disinfectant which was evidence that it was washed.

The attendant outside explained that they wash it many times during the day ,as it is being used.

A trader who had just used the toilet, said it was better than urinating outside and N10 was not too much to pay.

Abuja Markets Management Limited

The Abuja Markets Management Limited manages Wuse Market. It is their responsibility to ensure the market is kept clean, organized and accessible.

Aminu Inuwa Dutse who is the Head, Monitoring & Enforcement said they have stationed security around to enforce the warning, but it was difficult.

Dutse said, “If you arrest somebody urinating, the law says you cannot keep that person in custody for more than 24 hours. And the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) court sits once a week you see that you cannot hold the person, and that is where it ends.

There is also no law backing the fine of N2,000, we just put it there to scare them. You know sometimes in enforcing a rule, you can fall on the wrong side of the law so we have to respect human rights.

Then the AEPB has so many cases to attend to that someone urinating in a public place is very minor.”

Way out

Is it possible that Nigerians can stop public urination? Abbas, the private security at Intercontinental Bank said the act would be minimal if government provides mobile toilets with water at every 2km distance at no cost to the public.


He said after making such provision, then public urination by-laws can be enacted in various states, so there is a legal backing to arrest offenders.

Another trader Chinedu who does not oppose public urination said “When nature comes calling you must obey, but do it somewhere private. It is also necessary that when people put up signs, they enforce it.

Timothy, a civil servant however believes the solution to the problem goes beyond provision of mobile toilets.

“It is the nonchalant attitude of Nigerians that has spread to all spheres of life. In those days when we were growing up in the village, even in the bush if you want to ease yourself you would have to walk farther. I believe the War Against Indiscipline (WAI) under Buhari-Idiagbon if it had stayed would have solved this problem.

But what we need right now is a complete re-orientation of our values. If you say you would provide mobile toilets you would see people who would go and piss by the side of it. Then you even make it worse by saying it should not be paid for, that gives room for misuse which Nigerians are good at.”