BY AKUDORO GLORIA

As Nigeria joins the rest of the globe to mark this year’s ‘World Toilet Day’ which was themed “Accelerating Change”, the universal awareness on safe toileting focuses on inspiring every individual to participate in the campaign by taking personal action to help improve toilets and sanitation systems.

The World Toilet Day is an annual observance, marked on 19th November as declared by the United Nations General Assembly in year 2013 to tackle global sanitation crisis. This tends to raise awareness of the 3.5 billion people living without safe toilets and 419 million people still going to the toilet in the open while in Nigeria 48 million people still practice open defecation.

According to United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 2023, the consequences of unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) on children can be deadly as around 1,000 children under age 5 die every day of diarrhoeal diseases due to lack of appropriate WASH services.

However, the 2023 World Toilet Day fell on Sunday 19th November, therefore, the Federal Ministry of Environment in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation shifted the celebration to Tuesday 22nd November and was held in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

To bridge the gap of this glaring challenges of decades of unsafe toileting and continued practice of open defecation towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), the federal government on its part has raised the bar to reawaken societal consciousness on the importance of individual actions however small to improve sanitation systems and protect our natural environment.

Speaking at the commemoration of the World Toilet Day, the Minister of Environment, Mallam Balarabe Abbas Lawal, restated that issues of open defecation in the country will no longer be business as usual as the ministry is committed to deploy all its regulatory frameworks to ensure adequate enforcement of sanitation laws in the country as it.

Lawal also spoke on various practical steps taken by President Tinubu’s administration to addressing the sanitation challenges in the country through the Declaration of State of Emergency on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and the signing of Executive Order no 009 on Open Defecation Free Nigeria by 2025.

Other practical commitment by the federal government are revision and validation of the 2005 National Environmental Sanitation Policy including policy guidelines on safe excreta and sewage disposal by Environment Ministry and national stakeholders, which will soon be presented to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval, according to the Minister.

Part of the steps taken, according to Lawal, is the community-based intervention on the control of open defecation and the clean and green programmes of the Federal Ministry of Environment and among others which are aimed at promoting the provision of safe and adequate toilets across the country, particularly in public places and ensuring proper excreta management in Nigeria.

To ensure that collective efforts are achieved, the the Minister called for urgent and massive investment and innovation along the entire sanitation service chain to promote public health and as well as boost the economy.

It would be recalled that on Thursday 16th November, both the Federal Ministries of Environment and Water Resources and Sanitation held a press briefing ahead of the 2023 World Toilet Day to scale up the awareness level and also reminded all stakeholders that the countdown has begun and must accelerate progress to ensure everyone has access to toilets by 2030.

Meanwhile, the Minister further noted that as part of activities to mark this year’s event, the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with the Ministry of Educatuon carried-out advocacy, sensitization and sanitary inspection of Federal Government Unity schools in FCT and came up with some findings that some toilets in the hostels in some of the schools visited were locked due to poor condition and in some schools were challenge of inadequate water supply which results to students going to toilet in the open.

Lawal, therefore, charged all Unity schools across country with similar sanitation challenges to take note and improve on their sanitation situation while he also called on both ministries to continue with the sanitary inspection of government schools and reward the cleanest school at the end of the exercise as one of the post-World Toilet Day commemoration activities.

Also speaking, the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Engr. Joseph Terlumun Utsev said in addition to federal government institutional framework towards improved and sustained access to sanitation services, there’s need for a multi-dimensional approach through the involvement of development partners, the private sector operators, civil society organisations, research institutions, media, and other stakeholders.

According to him, this will help in leveraging the diverse technical expertise and finance that will help nation promote innovative and scalable approaches towards strengthening systems for accelerated progress in meeting the SDG 6.2 targets.

“Earlier this year, the Ministry was able with the support of the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF) to produce an update of the 2020 Toilet Board Coalition report on the Sanitation Economy. The report conclude, which also included Menstrual Hygiene Marketplace potential in Nigeria, identified a potential $6.1 billion in opportunities in this Sector as at 2022 which could grow to $14.2 billion by 2030. These are in the areas of the toilet economy ($9.9 billion), circular sanitation economy ($2.5 billion), smart sanitation economy ($25 million) and menstrual hygiene marketplace ($1.8 billion).

“Unfortunately, only a few of these potentials are being exploited and there is therefore a need to identify scalable approaches for their realisation”, the Minister lamented.

Utsev who reiterated government’s commitment to support sub-national level initiatives towards ending open defecation and improving access to WASH services for the populace, said this is borne of the recognition that the success of this campaign is dependent on strong engagement with States, LGAs and other Stakeholders to secure the needed political and high-level commitment required to drive the Campaign.

Meanwhile, the Director overseeing the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Charles Okeah, in his welcome address has described issues concerning open defecation to be both global and national crisis that poses a threat to nature and everyone’s health particularly women, girls and other vulnerable groups.

Highlights of the event included the speeches given by students from several government schools about WASH and the ministries’ award presentations to the pupils, which included school bags and some tokens.