Nigeria’s sanitation situation worsens

The report noted that: “In 1990, 38 per cent of the population had access to improved sanitation. In 2015, this figure is now a woeful 29 per cent (up just a meagre 1per cent from 2014’s figure of 28 per cent). The proportion of Nigeria’s population that has gained access to improved sanitation since 1990 is only 9 per cent.”
The report went further to add that in 1990, 24 per cent of the population was practicing open defecation. That figure in 2015 is now 25 per cent. In 2014, it was 23 per cent which means we’re not only worse off now than we were 25 years ago but in the past year alone, we’ve regressed by 2 per cent in this regard.
The federal government according to the report hasn’t met the national target it set to ensure 75 per cent of its population had access to safe water by 2015. “We have generally done better in the area of water provision and have met the MDG target for water which was to halve the number of people without access to safe water.
“The goal on sanitation, however, has failed dramatically. At present rates of progress, it would take 300 years for everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa to get access to a sanitary toilet.
At the last update, in 2014, 748 million people were found to not have access to an ‘improved’ water source and 2.5 billion were without basic, sanitary toilets,” the report said.
Reacting to the report, Dr Michael Ojo, WaterAid Nigeria Country Representative said: “It is true that a lot has changed in the 25 years since the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme began to document the world’s access to drinking water and sanitation; the picture for Nigeria however has for the most part remained quite grim.
Communities without safe water and basic toilets have higher rates of illnesses and are held back from economic progress. Children spend long hours fetching water instead of at school desks, parents are less able to spend time earning incomes and hospitals are filled with people suffering from preventable water-borne illnesses. The burden is disproportionally felt by women and girls, who are most often tasked with fetching water and who are most at risk of harassment and worse if they are without a safe, private place to relieve themselves.”