‘No sewage treatment plant in Nigeria’

Mr Ebisike Augustine, Registrar, Environmental Health Council of Nigeria said in a presentation as part of activities to mark the 2014 World Toilet Day that: “Despite our level of development, environmental sanitation in Nigeria has been left at the 19th century level with very little development if any and that is why diseases such as cholera, typhoid and other enteric diseases keep occurring in epidemic proportions claiming many lives.”
According to the EHCN registrar, other diseases such as Lassa fever are increasing in the number of states where the diseases are endemic. Edo, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Taraba and Rivers are known to have sporadic epidemics, far away from Borno State where the disease was first discovered.
He noted that the nationwide absence of sewerage systems in our major cities, apart from Wuse, Maitama and Asokoro districts of the Abuja metropolis of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, has left many wondering if the country would meet the MDGs target on sanitation.
“Nationally, we do not have sewage treatment plant in either our major cities or in most rural areas. For those of us that have well designed toilet outside the centre of Abuja, when the content of such toilets are emptied, where are such content taken to?” he asked.
“While I agree with those who are working for open defecation free communities in Nigeria, our situation shows unfortunately that we are all practicing open defecation.
“I have seen figures bandied around as the population of Nigerians without toilets or having to do it in the open. These figures range from 35 million to 56 million people depending on who you are talking to. However, the unfortunate reality is that this figure to me is higher if you take into cognisance the fact that even those of us who have built the structure to take care of the problem at one point bring the content from out individual homes to the open in the form of dumping it into the bodies of water either flowing or stagnant,” he added.
He said that the water bodies where content of toilets are dumped serve as water for drinking or for irrigation, adding “this is the sad reality facing us today.”
Stopping open defecation in Nigeria, according to him, requires a paradigm shift. “Our nation needs to accept the sad reality that national development would be stunted unless we can better develop the issue of basic sanitation,” he said.
Dr. Michael Ojo, WorldAid Nigeria Country Representative, said the dangers of poor sanitation and dirty water have been known for around 150 years, yet 72 per cent of the population does not have a basic toilet to use in Nigeria.
He said lack of access to basic sanitation is harmful to the environment and health of the people and often leaves a lifetime legacy of disease and poverty.
“Those people need our government to collectively step up and commit that by 2030 no home, hospital or school will be without a toilet and clean water,” he added.
Kannan Nadar, Chief Water Sanitation and Hygiene section of UNICEF, said lack of proper toilets and the prevailing practice of open defecation adversely affect the environment, health, economy as well as the overall development of the country.
He said the adverse impact of open defecation is disproportionately skewed towards the poor, the elderly, the disabled, women/girl and children under 5.
Nadar noted that Nigeria has made a call to end open defecation by 2025 and that eliminating open defecation in the country is achievable as demonstrated by the success of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach.
“Let’s mark this event by dedicating ourselves to mobilising Nigerians to construct and use toilets, so that every Nigerian child can survive and thrive! If 75 percent of Nigerians can own and maintain mobile phones, it is also possible for them to own and maintain a toilet,” he said.
A recent report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said global efforts to provide improved water and sanitation which was gaining momentum is being slowed down by serious gaps in funding thereby hampering progress.
The report listed insufficient financing, funding gap in rural areas, weak national capacity to execute Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) plans, critical gaps in monitoring and neglect for WASH in schools, health facilities as the challenges hampering the progress of provision of improved water and sanitation.
According to the report, over 80,000 deaths in Nigeria was attributable to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene, while 28 percent has access to use of improved sanitation facilities and 64 per cent to improved drinking water source which is poor.
Dr Maria Neira, Director of WHO Department of Public Health and the Environment, said water and sanitation are essential to human health and the need for political commitment to ensure universal access to these vital services is at an all-time high.
She said: “International aid for the sector is on the rise. But we continue to see major financial gaps at the country level, particularly in rural areas.”
It is stated that aid commitments are increasingly targeted to underserved regions, notably sub-Saharan Africa, southern and south-eastern Asia
Despite all the effort to improve water and basic sanitation, 2.5 billion people around the world lack access to basic sanitation services. About 1 billion people continue to practice open defecation and additional 748 million people do not have ready access to an improved source of drinking water according to the report.
Also, hundreds of millions of people live without clean water and soap to wash their hands, facilitating the spread of diarrhoea, the second leading cause of death among children under five.
In the report, Nigeria with over 50 million people defecating in the open is among the top five countries in the world with the largest number of people practicing open defecation.
However, WHO has noted that investments in water and sanitation would yield substantial benefits for human health and development. According to WHO estimates, for every dollar invested in water and sanitation, there is a $4.3 return in the form of reduced health care costs for individuals and society.
Also, that the benefits cut across many sectors, as economic and environmental gains would increase greater productivity in the workplace and reduced pollution of water and land resources, it said adding that gains in quality of life would improve school attendance, greater privacy and safety especially for women, children and the elderly and a greater sense of dignity for all.