WHO, UNICEF: Nigeria’s sanitation situation worsens

Nigeria has recorded no progress in the area of sanitation in the last 25 years, a World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) 2015 has said.

 The 2015 report is aimed at monitoring the progress of countries towards achieving access to safe water and basic sanitation.

 It said in 1990, 38 per cent of the population had access to improved sanitation.

 In 2015, the figure is now 29 per cent, which is up just by 1 per 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 said.

It said in 1990, 24 per cent of the population was practicing open defecation. That figure  is now 25 per cent.

 It added that in 2014, it was 23 per cent which means that Nigeria is not only worse off now than it was 25 years ago but in the past year alone, the country has regressed by 2 per cent in this regard.

 According to the report, the Federal Government has not met the national target it set to ensure that 75 per cent of its population has access to safe water by this year.

 “Nigeria has generally done better in the area of water provision and has 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,” it stated.

 Reacting to the new report, the Country Representative of WaterAid Nigeria, an international agency, Dr. Michael Ojo, said that It is true that a lot has changed in the 25 years since the WHO /UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme began to document the world’s access to drinking water and sanitation.

 The picture for Nigeria, he said, has for the most part remained quite grim.

 Dr. Ojo said: “Communities without safe water and basic toilets have higher rates of illness 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 fill 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.”