ENVIRONMENT

Posted:  Thursday May 8, 2008

Nigeria needs N14bn to provide toilets for citizens — Survey (I)

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Nigeria requires more than 120 million dollars (about N14 billion) to provide 62 million citizens access to basic sanitation and hygiene by 2015.

The statistics were provided by the UNICEF “D’’ Field Office in Bauchi in response to a national survey on sanitation and hygiene undertaken by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The target is in line with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on sanitation.According to the UN agency, the country alsoneeds to build more than eight million toilets before 2015 to achieve sustainable sanitation and hygiene.In essense, Nigeria requires at least one million toilets annually across the 774 local government areas.

The MDG target for sanitation is to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation.

The action plan seeks to facilitate theconstruction of one million toilets annually between 2008 and 2015.

“An estimated cost of about 120 million dollars will be required to build one million latrines per annum, and three million dollars is required for the hand washing campaign,’’ UNICEF states.

It says that this expenditure will provide an estimated 62 million citizens access to basic sanitation and hygiene.

“For now, only about 150,000 toilet facilities are built per year in Nigeria,’’ the agency notes.According to the UNICEF statistics, out of the country’s population of 140 million, only 53 per cent of urban and 36 per cent of rural dwellers have access to safe sanitation.

Less than 43 per cent of the total population have access to hand washing facilities, it says.The agency blames poor sanitation as the largest direct cause of childhood mortality and a major contributing factor to diarrhoea, malnutrition and pneumonia.

It cites diarrhoea as the largest cause of child mortality after malaria, representing about 16 per cent of annual childhood deaths.

“About 150,000 to 200,000 deaths among children occur annually due to diarrhoea. Today, a child dies every four minutes due to diarrhoea and other water and sanitation-related diseases.’’

UNICEF adds that the lack of safe private toilets and hand washing facilities in schools affects educational enrolment and performance, especially among girls. It expresses dismay that Nigeria lags behind other countries in adopting strategies that scale up rural sanitation and hygiene programmes.

“Nigeria at present is not on track toward achieving the MDG on water and sanitation target,’’ the agency says.

It advises government at all levels to show greater commitment to the actualisation of the water and sanitation goal.

UNICEF says that it is providing technical support to the government in evolving a comprehensive approach to sanitation and water programmes for sustainable development.

The agency adds that it is working with the African Development Bank, EU, Britain’s Department for International Department, the World Bank, Water Aid and the private sector to streamline the execution of its hand washing campaign.

The campaign, initiated last year, is to sensitise the citizens to the importance of washing their hands after visiting the toilets.

The programme is expected to reach some 30 million Nigerians and create an enabling environment for sustainable sanitation and hygiene programmes in the country.

But as the country struggles to attain the MDG on hygiene and sanitation, more than 90 per cent of the more than 800,000 pupils in some 1,000 public primary schools in Bauchi State still defecate and urinate in open places.

According to the NAN survey, the pupils engage in the act due to the absence of toilet facilities in their schools. Most of the schools spread across the 20 local government areas of the state either lack toilets or the few available ones are in a deplorable condition.

Even where there are toilets in some of the newly constructed schools, the facilities have not been put to use as they remain under lock and key.

NAN also observed that some of the public schools in the Bauchi metropolis lackadequate pipe-borne water needed toimprove sanitation and hygiene. At Nasarawa and Gwallaga Primary Schools in the metropolis, the pupils and their teachers rely on open wells for their water needs.

Alhaji Abdullahi Dabo, the Chairman of the Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board, described the situation as pathetic.

He said that 130 Ventilated Improved Pit(VIP) Latrines would be constructed annually to improve sanitation in public primary schools in the state.

As part of measures to improve hygiene and sanitation, Hajiya Dije Bala, the Director-General of the Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency, told NAN that 1,300 sanitary inspectors would be trained

The training would be on basic hygiene education, safe environmental techniques and waste management, she said.

Five hundred of the trainees will be deployed in the Bauchi metropolis, while 40 others will be sent to each of the remaining 19 local government areas of the state.

Meanwhile, the state government, in concertwith UNICEF, has begun to implement the agency’s hand washing campaign in the various communities.

In Kano State, NAN observed that most primary schools lack good toilet facilities as the ones on ground are either saturated or dilapidated.

Consequently, many of the pupils go to the bush to ease themselves. The state government, however, has said that it will implement a “water harvesting system” for toilets in its primary schools.

The Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board, Alhaji Hudu Sani, said the process would be useful in terms of water reservation, especially during the rainy season.

He said the harvesting system would assist in sanitising the primary schools and promote basic environmental hygiene.

Sani expressed the state government’s commitment to the renovation and provision of more toilets in primary and junior schools across the state.

On its part, a non-governmental organisation, Gender and Water Alliance, has embarked on a statewide hand washing campaign in primary schools in Kano State.

An official of the organisation, Malama Indo Ibrahim, said that from November 2007 to date, the alliance had launched the campaign in 50 primary schools.

She said the organisation was able to mobilise environmental health clubs in the concerned schools.

According to her, the pupils are sensitised through drama and songs to basic and sustainable environmental and health practices.

The official noted that the campaign had received tremendous acceptability. In Kogi, Mr Emmanuel Achimugu, the General Manager of the state Sanitation and Waste Management Board, said the state needed at least 1,500 sanitary inspectors for the hand washing campaign in schools.

He described the present 300 inspectors as grossly inadequate, explaining that they had been charged with ensuring compliance by the schools.

According to the national survey, most schools in Lokoja have toilet facilities but lack water for the students to wash their hands after visiting the toilets.

Pleading anonymity, the headmasters and principals of the public schools visited described the situation as embarrassing.

They called on the state government to redress the ugly trend by employing more sanitary inspectors and providing water in the schools in the interest of the health of those concerned and the society.

In Akwa Ibom, the lack of water in public schools is widespread, as only a few have boreholes.

As a result, individual schools buy water toput in their wash-hand basins for the students to use after visiting the toilets.

The Principal of one the primary schools, Mr. Clement Ntia, said: ‘’We send our pupils to buy water for our wash-hand basins because of the lack of pipe-borne water.’’

Mr. Francis John, the Headmaster of Government Primary School, Uyo, confirmed the lack of potable water in the various schools.

All the same, he said that teachers were compelled to enforce basic hygiene and sanitation among the students. The Ondo State Government, however, says that it has not been involved in the hand washing campaign.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Kehinde Adedeji, said the programme had not been introduced to the state government by the relevant international or federal government agency.

He said that if the campaign had been duly introduced, the government would have no  choice than to embrace it to enhance good hygiene in primary and secondary schools. In the survey conducted in the state, 60 per cent of public primary schools have no toilets, 30 per cent have pit toilets, while only about 10 per cent have water closet toilets.

However, all the private primary schools have modern toilets with adequate water supply.

The situation in public secondary schools is a little different as less than 10 per cent are without toilets.

In Eji-Oba Grammar School, Oba-Ile, Akure North Local Government Area, toilet and hand washing facilities are not provided, forcing the students to defecate in the surrounding bush.

The situation is the same at St. Paul Primary School in the town. Also in Kwara, the hand washing campaign has yet to take off in schools in Ilorin and other parts of the state. Although schools in the state were on vacation during the survey period, some teachers interviewed claimed ignorance of the campaign.

At one of the schools visited, Eruda LGEA Primary School, a teacher, who identified himself as Malam BabatundeIssa, said that he was hearing about the programme for the first time.

Hand Wash Campaign in schools? I must say that as a senior teacher in this school, I am hearing that for the first time. And I can say is that in my school and other schools in Kwara State such a thing has not been introduced through UNICEF.

“However, talking about hygiene and sanitation, on our part as teachers, we always strive to ensure that our pupils are always clean and we punish those who do not conform with basic sanitary rules,’’ Issa said.

He said that because his primary school lacked pipe-borne water, the pupils usually fetched water from the neighbourhood. The survey showed that the level of hygiene  in public schools in Kwara is very low as a result of non-provision of toilets and water.

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