Nigeria, Delta State Perform Poorly in Open Defecation Eradication
ASABA/Nigeria: The Federal Ministry of Water Resources says only 78 local government areas in the country have attained Open Defecation Free status, out of the total of seven hundred and seventy four.
Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, made this known during the South-South Zonal Review on Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign, held in Asaba, the Delta State capital.
Adamu pointed the figure is against the Executive Order 009 on Open Defecation Free Nigeria by 2025, signed by President Mohammadu Buhari in 2019, thus the initiative to intensify efforts at achieving the target.
The Minister who was represented by National Coordinator Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign, Mrs Okpara Chizoma, decried the prevalence of the practice in the country, while appealing for political and citizens support towards a culture of safe sanitation.
“More than two years into the campaign, and we have 78 local government, but we need to accelerate progress. So we are telling everyone, stop open defecation, we need to build toilets and we need to use toilets.”
The Delta State General Manager Rural Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene Agency, Clement Adiotomre, narrated the consequences of open defecation especially in riverine communities, saying the state objective was to get one local government Open Defecation Free status before the 2025 national target.
“The man defecating in this part of the river says ‘am free, I will go and fetch from the upstream’, the man where you are going to fetch is also defecating there, and you go you collect his own you drink and you become ill.”
Meanwhile, the Secretary to Delta State Government, Patrick Ukah, said twenty-six percent of the residents still practice open defecation, stressing the government had collaborated with national and foreign actors to achieve an Open Defecation Free status for the state.
The Review Meeting brought together state focal officers for the Clean Nigeria campaign across the six states of the South-South geopolitical zone.
