Minister laments slow progress ending open defecation

Minister of Water Recourses, Suleiman Husssein Adamu has expressed displeasure over the slow progress by Nigeria in the implementation of the roadmap towards making Nigeria open defecation free by 2025.

This is just as he revealed that only 14 local government areas across the country have been certified open defecation free.

Speaking during a forum on sanitation organised by Private Sector in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (OPS-WASH) in Abuja on Monday, with the theme: ‘’Coordinating indigenous private sector initiative to end open defecation in Nigeria,” the minister said that Nigeria currently ranks as number one, amongst  countries that practice open defecation in Africa.

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“Moreover, we are on the brink of being ranked first globally, as approximately 47 million people do not have access to sanitation services in its most basic form.

“Understandably, this is a serious concern to all of us as it has immense economic consequences and also hinders the social development of the country.

“The 2018 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) national outcome routing mapping data showed that access to basic water supply services in the country is 67.9 per cent while access level to basic sanitation is 41.5 per cent.

“Access to basic sanitation in institutions and public places are also not encouraging, with the statistics sitting at a meagre 35.7 per cent. Furthermore only 34 per cent of schools have access to basic water supply and sanitation facilities. Only 15.7 per cent of schools have access to basic WASH services out of which only 5.5 per cent of them are gender sensitive,” he said.

Earlier, the UNICEF Nigeria Representative, Ms. Pernille Ironside said the launch of the partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (PEWASH) programme in 2016, is aimed to achieve the WASH SDGs by 2030.

On his part, the Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr. Zaid Jurji, said that the nation requires the collaboration of all Nigerians to end open defecation.

Jurji stressed the need to get all Nigerians involved to create successful solutions to end open defecation.