Nigeria rolls out nationwide plan to end open defecation by 2025

Nigerian government has announced its commitment to bringing to a final stop by the year 2025, the practice of open defecation across the country.

Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, and even garages to defecate.

This act has caused the outbreak of many illnesses and also affects the environment in diverse ways.

Buy the Fderal Ministry of Environment has reiterated its commitment to implementing policies and programmes aimed at ending open defecation.

Speaking in Abuja during a public hearing this week, the minister of state for environment, Ishaq Adekunle Saleko stated that the government had already started the process of achieving the set goal.

Present at the hearing were House of Representatives Committees on Environment, Water Resources, Works, Ecological Fund as well as Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.

Saleko said the National Environmental Sanitation Policy and its guidelines on sewage and excreta management in the country has been developed.

He said the ministry has initiated a programme called “Clean and Green” in which one of its aims is to eliminate open defecation in Nigeria by 2025 and ensure sustainable total sanitation and implementation of green technology initiatives in Nigeria.

He also said that the ministry has “established sanitation desks in the 36 States’ Ministries of Environment and FCT to monitor and ensure proper environmental sanitation at the community and household levels by conducting routine sanitary inspections of premises, and sensitizing the public on dangers of open defecation and the importance of having access to toilet in residential and public places.”

He added that the ministry will also “conduct regular sensitisation/advocacy and sanitary inspection of toilets in Federal Government-owned institutions and Unity Schools nationwide.

Saleko also revealed the ministry’s intervention and a series of planned activities targeting control of open defecation nationwide which has been implemented in Kogi, Nasarawa and Kano states.

Meanwhile, while declaring the public hearing open, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen said the pressing demand for additional toilets across the nation cannot be ignored.

He said clean and secure sanitation facilities are a fundamental human right that remains inaccessible to millions of citizens.