Nigerians need to pause and weigh the figures from the Bureau of Statistics that 50 per cent of the estimated 200 million population defecates in the open because they do not have toilet. The situation becomes depressingly grave with the health implication of the blow-back from all that faeces that find their way into various homes through the water families use. Considering this dire situation, the Federal Government must take a lead in stemming open defecation through deliberate policy framework, as recommended by the Indian-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in its 2019 report, chronicling the state of Nigeria’s sanitation. Bennett Oghifo writes
Nigeria and India have common detonators like huge population and large expanse of land, which naturally come with some challenges, particularly in the sector of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
When in 2019, India declared itself open defecation free, it was with a deep sense of pride because it was seen as victory for everybody that heeded the call by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to shun the shameful act of defecating in the open not only because of its health hazard, but also because of insecurity issues, particularly for women and girls who become rape victims.
Nigeria is still saddled with this burden of open defecation, in spite of the fact that in 2018, the federal government declared a state of emergency in the WASH sector.
Reports say not less than 47 million people still defecate in the open and that 100,000 children under the age of five years die annually on account of unsafe water supply and sanitation in the country. This is in addition to the nation’s loss of about N455 billion yearly because of unimproved sanitation.
According to a report, ‘Nigeria: Improving the State of Sanitation’, published in 2019 by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, the poor are the worst sufferers.
The report says “Undigested faecal sludge emptied from pit and septic tanks is mostly buried or dumped, and wastewater flows through villages freely, contaminating soil and groundwater.”
CSE, which researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable, said “In spite of Nigeria’s progress in sanitation, it needs to work on safe containment, emptying, transportation, treatment, and disposal or reuse of faecal sludge and wastewater.”
They recommended that, ultimately, the federal government should frame effective guidelines and bylaws aligned to the problem.
The situation
According to the CSE report, “Nigeria, with a population of 191 million, was ranked with the second-highest number of open defecators after India in the world till 2 October 2019, when India declared itself open-defecation free.”
The report says 50 per cent of Nigeria’s population is poor, and that the government is now fighting to pull the country out of poverty and poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions.
“With the aim of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 of ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation and hygiene for all, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources (FMoWR) and National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria, along with a few international organisations—which collected data on WASH from the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria and its 36 states—published the WASH National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASH-NORM) Survey report in 2018 to generate data for decision makers.
The report says that only one-third of the country has access to basic WASH services and that the poorest are ten times more likely to lack basic WASH services than the richest population across all the six geopolitical zones of the country (the 36 states and the FCT are divided into six geopolitical zones).
“Almost 67 per cent of Nigeria’s households live in rural areas, and research data from several studies indicate that basic water and sanitation services are very poor in its rural areas.
“Data from the Nigerian government shows that only 26 per cent of the rural population has access to basic water and sanitation services while situation in urban areas is slightly better, with 45 per cent of the population accessing such services. The latest WASH-NORM Survey says that 47 million Nigerians—which is 24.4 per cent of the population—practise open defecation. Not only households, schools also face sanitation and water crisis. Only 15.7 per cent of schools have access to basic water and sanitation services. Around 40.3 per cent of the schools do not have any toilet facility in the premises.”
Various research studies, according to the report, indicate that people from rural areas practise open defecation more than those in urban areas. Open defecation takes place near rivers and lakes, which serve as major drinking-water resources.5 In most cases this practice is deeply tied to the tradition. As per the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report published jointly by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019, the percentage of people defecating in the open in rural areas has decreased by almost 3 per cent (from 33.1 per cent to 30.6 per cent) while those using unimproved sanitation has increased from 21.9 per cent to 29.9 per cent between 2000 and 2015. Thus, the report reveals, even if the people have started using toilets, excreta is not safely managed.
According to the report, Nigeria uses to a great extent toilets and septic tanks as on-site sanitation facilities. As per the report, the use of toilets in 2015 in rural areas was almost six times the use of septic tanks, while in the urban areas, toilets and septic tanks were used almost in equal proportion. Local interviews revealed that toilets meant open pits or drop holes with or without cemented slabs, pour-flush pit toilets or ventilated improved pit (VIP) toilets.
But do these on-site facilities help manage excreta? According to the 2019 JMP report, the major problem is that almost 70 per cent of rural and 44 per cent of urban household toilets have never emptied excreta from their on-site facilities in Nigeria. Different research reports as well as data from the government’s own study reveal that the faecal sludge emptied from pits and tanks is either buried in covered pits or evacuated to be dumped somewhere— household owners do not know where. Interviews with locals, non-profits, researchers and government officials revealed that sludge emptied from septic tanks and pits is mostly in an undigested state due to wrong technological specifications of the pits and septic tanks. Hence the chance of contamination of underground water and soil with undigested faecal matter is a concern.
President Buhari’s declaration of a state of emergency in the WASH sector was followed by the launch of the National WASH Action Plan, a 13-year plan of action for revitalising the WASH sector. In February 2019, the governments of India and Nigeria coordinated a study, with the support of UNICEF and other development partners, to help the African delegates gain insight from the Indian sanitation programme Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).
According to the 2019 JMP report, in 2017, Nigeria attained only 26.7 per cent improved sanitation, which included cases where faecal sludge was buried in pits. The country is now working towards eliminating open defecation, but it is time to work towards safe toilets, with containment, emptying, transportation, safe disposal or treatment, and reuse. Provision should be made for reuse of the wastewater (black and grey) and faecal sludge.
The sanitation crisis seems not to be only due to technical flaws. Uneven adoption of the policies by the states and fractured governance has also slowed progress in the country. The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has been given the oversight role for water and waterborne sanitation. But the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Health also look after general sanitation and hygiene promotion.
The report says “there is a lot of confusion about the responsibility of sanitation at the state and local levels as it is shared among health, water sources and environment. Nigeria also faces a challenge in the question of promoting water and sanitation policies at the state level as water and sanitation is a state responsibility.” According to African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), Nigerian states have shown uneven adoption of national water supply and sanitation policy guidelines. This is reflected in the water supply and sanitation services across different states. The WASH-NORM 2018 report shows the disparity of sanitation services due to such uneven implementation of policies—the state of Katsina shows over 81 per cent basic sanitation services and Ebonyi around 10 per cent. Similarly, people living in Rivers State are three times more likely to use basic water supply services than those in Sokoto.
Nigeria is under great pressure to meet the development goals, as well as other safe-sanitation commitments. The country failed to meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) (which had a 2015 deadline) focused on water and sanitation.
In 2013, African heads of state and government launched the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 for action to all segments of African society to work together to build a prosperous and united Africa based on shared values and a common destiny, with water and sanitation as among top priorities, the report says. The country was part of Ngor Declaration of 2015 whose vision is to achieve universal access to adequate and sustainable sanitation and hygiene services and eliminate open defecation by 2030. In May 2015, African Ministers responsible for sanitation and hygiene adopted the Ngor Declaration on Sanitation and Hygiene at the AfricaSan4 conference held in Senegal. The commitments were made in recognition of the fact that the gains made in sanitation access since 1990 had not kept pace with demographic change; the understanding of the centrality of hygiene and sanitation to existing heath, and the economic, social and environmental burden on African countries; and to reaffirm the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation for all. Although made in advance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—launched by United Nations in 2015 with 2030 as the deadline—the vision of the Ngor Declaration closely aligns to the SDG sanitation and hygiene targets.
Nigeria is working hard to achieve SDG Goal 6.2 for universal access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene facilities. But to reach this, it cannot be business as usual. Not only is a development of a policy aligned towards achieving SDG 6 required, but the development of a transparent Management Information System (MIS) for data sharing is the need of the hour so that policies at the local and state levels are easily implemented. The focus has to be on disparities in access to sanitation in different geopolitical regions and states, between urban and rural areas, and the rich and poor. One needs to understand where such disparities occur and why. Is low funding in the water and sanitation sector, lack of integration between the public and private sectors, inadequate coordination of the associated sectors or related ministries, poor institutional arrangement, lack of technological know-how or lack of reliable data responsible? It is crucial to find the impediments to Nigeria achieving the SDG goal on WASH so that appropriate steps can be taken to pull out the country out of the crisis.
According to the 2019 JMP (Joint Monitoring Programme for water supply and sanitation by WHO and UNICEF) report, between 2000 and 2017, 39 countries—or 49 million people—recorded increases in the number of people defecation in the open. According to the report, most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, which had experienced rapid population growth since 2000. The data clearly shows that Nigeria is one of the leading countries among these 39 countries.
