Students of public schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have called on the authorities to provide more toilets in the schools towards curbing the menace of open defecation.
The students who gathered at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, to commemorate the World Toilet Day, identified inadequate facilities as one of the reasons behind the prevalence of open defecation in Nigeria, and therefore called on government to remedy the situation.
Most of the students, who spoke at the event, decried inadequate toilets in FCT schools.
According to Kasham Bako, a student of JSS, Durumi 1, “Let me use my school as an example. In JSS, Durumi 1, we have only two toilets, so we will be very grateful if the government can come and help us build more toilets in the school.”
She added that, “Many diseases are caused by open defecation. So there is a need for a strong monitoring team to monitor and make sure that people don’t go about defecating in open places. That means there are also supposed to be toilets for people in every nook and cranny so that it will not be difficult to locate them, especially in public areas.”
Uzoma Odi of GSS, Wuse Zone 1, said the federal government needed to build toilets everywhere to end open defecation, noting that in many schools in the FCT open defecation took place because there were no toilets, adding that the situation was “really disappointing. That Nigeria is ranked as the number one country in terms of open defecation is worrisome.”
Ahmad Khadijat Kubrat of JSS, Area 11, noted that people thought that open defecation took place only in the rural areas, but that it also took place in the urban areas, and even in business and residential areas, adding that some of the causes of open defecation were poverty and poor maintenance of toilet facilities.
