Omon-Julius Onabu
Open defecation is a serious problem in any community because it is inimical to the desired healthy development of people and children in particular.
The value of toilets cannot be over-stressed. They ensure the safe disposal of human waste, including urine and faeces, and promote healthy living by preventing germs and other hygiene-related diseases such as diarrhoea.
The provision of toilets in schools is important in promoting the community’s health through hygienic and proper sanitation practice, especially since a large percentage of people in the communities often fall within the school-age bracket. You cannot seriously talk about proper and modern sanitation in schools without toilets.
It was pathetic that Adaigbo Secondary School, Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State, had no toilet facility for many years. Both students and staff had to go into nearby bushes whenever they were pressed. Alternatively, they had to drive or take commercial motorcycles to town to use the toilet. The school was established as a Catholic mission school in 1954.
That was the situation when the current principal, Mrs. Augusta Osunde, assumed office in 2016. She spoke about the embarrassing situation during the inauguration of the first toilet facilities in the school in many years.
“Well, it has not been so easy; it wasn’t easy to see the students and even the teachers going into the bush, considering the inconveniences and the danger of being bitten by snakes and scorpions. There was no toilet.
When they want to ease themselves, you see them going into the bush. Those who cannot go into the bush have to take a ride into town just to relieve themselves. It certainly hasn’t been easy,” Osunde said.
However, the Adaigbo Secondary School Old Boys Association ’84’ set recently intervened to redeem the situation. They took it upon themselves to construct a toilet facility as well as provide other useful support items. The project was last week formally handed over to the school.
The chairman of the presentation ceremony, Mr. Jude Elue, disclosed that the idea to provide a toilet for the school was conceived in a WhatsApp group chat that started as a joke. He assured that the group would do more for the school in the near future.
Rev. Fr Franklyn Oraegbu of the Holy Family Catholic Church, Ogwashi-Uku, who blessed the school and the donors and cut the tape to inaugurate the facilities, thanked the association, describing the gesture as worthy.
Apart from the block of four toilets and sewers, the old boys also provided a brand new generator, a water pumping machine, and an overhead water tank to pump water from the large concrete tank.
The school principal, who could not hide her delight, also thanked other sets of the alumni association that had promised to come to the aid of the school with various projects. She disclosed that another set of the old students had, late in August, also inaugurated a new block of four classrooms and chairs for the students as part of their own project.
“I must say they are doing well because it has never been like this. So, I’m happy that this time around, and under my watch as principal, quite a lot has been happening. Since I came in 2016, the school hasn’t witnessed anything like this,” she explained. “Just last month, precisely on August 28, another set of Old Boys came to commission the block of four classrooms over there. They also brought some chairs and promised to bring more chairs and desks and tables for use by students. Today we are witnessing another ceremony.”
Several buildings, including the former library, laboratory and college hall, are dilapidated. Most of them had been abandoned since the school became run down following the takeover of missionary built schools in the country by the military regime in Nigeria. Moreover, a gigantic building project in the premises, whose construction contract was said to have been awarded by the Delta government to a certain politician, an alumnus of the school, has been left uncompleted.
By World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF estimation in 2016, with about 50 million Nigerians still practising open defecation, Nigeria needed at least 43,000 toilets in schools nationwide to attain zero open defecation status. Aside from the health and hygiene benefits, toilets provide the privacy that people generally desire to dispose of human solid and liquid waste. In secondary schools, and even in primary schools, unisex toilets are not ideal though they are not illegal.
Against this backdrop, the initiative of the 1984 Set of the Adaigbo Secondary School (Ogwashi-Uku) Old Boys Association must be appreciated. The group has built not just good and separate toilets for male and female students and staff. They have also provided washing facilities with additional water pumping and storage facilities, including a standard power generating set and a pumping machine.
Towards implementation of the federal government’s policy of tackling and stamping out open defecation in Nigeria by 2025, which is barely four years away, President Muhammadu Buhari had, in November 2019, signed Executive Order 009. In the previous months, it had kick-started a supposed nationwide enlightenment campaign on the health and environmental sanitation hazards of open defecation practice through the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in collaboration with the ministries of Information and Environment and international agencies, including UNICEF and WHO.
The practical dimension to that ambition is the huge challenge of building toilets for an estimated 20 million households (and schools) in the country during this period. All hands need to be on deck to realise that target. Intervention by alumni associations of primary and post-primary schools, such as the 1984 set of Adaigbo Secondary School in Ogwashi-Uku in Aniocha South local government area of Delta, is certainly a step in the right direction and the way to go.
