UNICEF says presently, no fewer than 120 million people in Nigeria lack access to improved sanitation facilities, thereby exposing them to public health hazards.

Mr Kannan Nadar, UNICEF’s Chief Officer in charge of Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said Nigeria needed an investment of N850 billion for households to construct 25 million toilets by 2025.

According to him, reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target on Sanitation requires us to multiply our current efforts by fifteen.

He said that Nigeria could achieve its target of meeting the National Roadmap of Ending Open defecation by 2030, “if it puts policies in place to encourage behavioural change in sanitation and Hygiene.”

Nadar said that the agency had carried out a survey in some selected communities, and observed that there was a gap between knowledge and attitude in hygiene promotion practice.

“Such situation could be reduced with proper hygiene promotion messages.”

He said 14,000 Nigerian communities have attained open defecation free status within the eight years of its intervention via the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) Programme.

He noted that Nigeria was known for having sanitary inspectors, who carried out enforcement of hygiene practices.

“But the inspectors did not appear to have the needed encouragement; such practice should be encouraged by all, to reduce possible outbreak of preventable diseases.”

According to him, Nigeria needs to scale up its hygiene promotion strategies to enable it become a social norm.

The UNICEF official, who said that the intervention was covering 200,000 communities, stated that poor persons were 36 times more likely to defecate in the open than rich individuals “due to the disproportionate distribution of wealth in the society.”

He challenged stakeholders to develop simple, better and cost effective messages that would enable more Nigerians change their behaviours towards hygiene promotion.

However, Nigeria being a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, hence needed to deliberately remove barriers to sanitation and hygiene problems in the country.

NAN also reports that Ekiti has the highest number of residents, among Nigerian states, who defecate openly, two agencies have said.

The UNICEF and the European Union state that two in three Ekiti residents engage in open defecation.

According to a report jointly presented by the organisations at a two-day media networking and alliance building workshop on Water Sanitation and Hygiene held at Ijero Ekiti.

The report stated that of the state’s 2.7million population, 1.8million engage in the unhygienic practice, saying Ekiti figure represents 60.8% of Nigerians who defecate openly.

The organisations said over 2.5 billion people lacked access to improved sanitation globally, out of which one billion were engaging in open defecation.

Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 42 Microfinance Institutions and three Micro-credit Banks to provide affordable loans to households for the construction of sanitation facilities.

The ministry`s Permanent Secretary, Hajiya Rabi Jimeta, said that the partnership was also to implement the Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (PEWASH) programme in the country, which needed no fewer than N510 billion.

Jimeta said the partner financial institutions would incorporate sanitation financing into their existing micro-credit portfolio and provide loans in collaboration with UNICEF and the State and Local Government agencies.

NAN also recalls that the ministry recently inaugurated the PEWASH strategy to seek out ways of funding to meet the sanitation and hygiene needs in the country before 2030.

The PEWASH programme is to contribute to improvement in public health and eradication of poverty in Nigeria through the achievement of SDGs six, especially in rural areas where access to quality water and sanitation are grossly inadequate. (NAN)