The United Nations Children’s Fund says 47 million people representing 24 per cent of Nigeria’s population practise open defecation or have unhygienic toilets. UNICEF said this during a media event on sanitation in Kano on Wednesday. The theme of the event was ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the toilet campaign’.
The body said its findings were based on the result of a 2018 survey by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping. The findings produced by UNICEF and the Ministry of Water Resources said out of the 47 million people practising open defecation in Nigeria, 16 million live in North-Central.
The findings said 53.9 per cent of the zone’s population practise open defecation. The South-West comes second with 28 per cent of its population involved in the practice.
The South-East occupies the third spot with 22.4 per cent of its population practising open defecation. The North-East was ranked fourth with 21.8 per cent, while South-South has 17.9 per cent of its population practising open defecation.
The survey stated that the North-West had the best record with 10.3 per cent. A UNICEF specialist Bioye Ogunjobi said Nigeria needed to add two million toilets per year between 2019 and 2025 to achieve the Universal Basic Sanitation target.
Quoting the WASHNORM survey, he said only 12 per cent of markets and motor parks visited had basic sanitation services. He said the practice was not limited to the poor in rural areas but also among the elite.
The Deputy Director, Child Rights Information Bureau, Ministry of Information and Culture, Abuja, Olumide Osanyinpeju, said the practice had brought diseases like dysentery and diarrhoea, adding that Federal Government was making efforts to end open defecation in 2025.
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