Lawmakers Task Ministries on End to Open Defecation

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Ministries of Water Resources, Health and Environment to prioritise efforts on rural water and sanitation projects in order to aid the availability of functional toilet facilities for the attainment of an Open Defecation Free (ODF) society.

The House resolved to establish a legislative caucus in Nigeria to be at par with its sister legislative bodies in the Sub Saharan African region with a view to bring together a diversity of shared knowledge and raise awareness on water and sanitations issues in a manner that would create collective action toward ending open defecation.

The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion of urgent national importance that was sponsored yesterday by the Chairman of House Committee on Water Resources, Hon. Sada Soli. 

Soli noted that Nigeria is still the number one in the global league of countries with open defecation prevalence. It is estimated that Nigeria has 47 million citizens that are indulging in open defecation.

He recalled that as part of government’s efforts to remove Nigeria from the unenviable world ranking, President Muhammadu Buhari, on November 20, 2019, signed an Executive Order 009 titled “Open Defecation Free Nigeria by 2025 and other related matters.”

He lamented that Nigeria is at the brink of having the highest number of people in the world that are practicing open defecation, as efforts in the past to address the situation had yielded minimal results.

He was worried that if there is no concrete effort by all and sundry, Nigeria would not be able to meet the projected target of the Executive Order 009 by 2025.n

The lawmaker said: “According to United Nations Children’s Fund, sanitation in Nigeria is very poor with vast majority of people in rural areas lacking decent toilets and latrines. It estimated that about 122,000 Nigerians including 87,000 children under the age of five die every year from diarrhea, intestinal worm infections, cholera, hepatitis, typhoid and other preventable sanitation illnesses.

“That there has been a call during the recent World Water Forum in Darkar, Senegal for the United Nations to establish a global platform for water to bring together political and economic decision makers, multilateral institutions, academia, civil societies and the private sector to find solutions to water and sanitation issues.”