The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, says the Federal Government will encourage states to introduce a law to ban open defecation in Nigeria.
Adamu said this at a Lunch Time Forum, with the theme, `Engage, Educate and Empower Nigerians on the Legacy Project of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources’ in Abuja.
!08scoop.com reports that with an estimated number of 48 million persons lacking access to toilets, Nigeria is among the nations in the world with the highest number of people practicing open defecation.
Despite adopting a road map in 2016, to eliminate open defecation in Nigeria by 2025, checks revealed that Nigeria has not made progress over the last three years in the fight against open defecation.
So far, only 71 out of Nigeria’s 774 local government areas are now declared ‘open defecation-free.’
In November 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari declared a state of emergency in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector and launched a National Action Plan tagged ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet’ to jump-start the country’s journey towards becoming open defecation-free.
But the practice has persisted and health and environmental experts express worry that it is having a negative effect on the populace, especially children, in the areas of health and education.
According to the Minister of Water Resources, the law is necessary as part of the national campaign towards ending open defecation by 2025.
“So, what we are doing as far as we are concerned is to encourage the states to, as part of their campaign, provide some legislation against open defecation.
“There was a bill that was presented by a senator in the National Assembly, who wanted to a national law enacted about it, it is still pending before the National Assembly.
“So, there might be a national law which we will support. We support some legislation at national level, but we think it’s more appropriate that states should be the ones to undertake this legislation.
“Secondly, the issue is if you do the legislation, is it fair to punish people for open defecation in motor parks, if we have not provided the facility.
“So, I think we also need to concentrate on providing these facilities, I used to call it a carrot and stick approach. That’s what I think it should be.’’
The minister said the Federal Government would continue to advocate for Nigerians to build and use their toilets, saying advocacy would be for improved construction of toilets, especially in public places.
He said it was within the purview of the states to enact the legislation, noting that local government councils could also have bye-laws that would address the menace.
On the Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme, Adamu said that states must meet eligibility criteria such as making counterpart funds available for sustainability.
He said many states had defaulted in keeping up their parts of the agreement in these projects, adding that they practice was no longer acceptable.
“We are not going to give free lunches to states anymore, we have done projects worth billions of naira, and given them to states, they didn’t pay a dime.
“Now for them to run the schemes, put the money down and get people to run the scheme, it is not being done. It has to be a partnership and they must meet all conditions.
“Federal Government is not going to be giving out its monies anyhow anymore, because we are not seeing the results in some places’’.
The minister added that some states were being crafty in project implementation with sharp practices like diversion of funds.
He emphasised the need for renewed partnerships between states and the federal government towards improving the water and sanitation needs of the populace.
