Nigeria May Set New World Record On Open Defecation – UNICEF

With the high rate of over 43 million Nigerians still practicing open defecation, the country may in two months become the capital city of open defecation in the world, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF has declared.

Mr Bioye Ogunjobi, a specialist with UNICEF, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, WASH, made this known yesterday at a media dialogue on sanitation in Makurdi, the Benue state capital.

Ogunjobi who stated that India currently holds the position would quit it for Nigeria in October when open defecation would be outlawed in that country.

He said, “By October 1, 2019, India which at present occupies that position will ban open defecation and Nigeria which currently occupies the second position will take over from India as the number one open defecation country.”

In her presentation, the Chief Scientific Officer, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs Yemi Akpa stated that the Federal government had approved the sum of N10billion to fight the menace across the country in 2019.

She spoke on the topic ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign – the Journey so far’  where she stated that it is expected that the federal government would release the said sum annually till the year 2025 when it was elected that the country would be free from the practice.

“This will sustain the campaign against the practice and for the campaign to be successful in Nigeria everyone must be involved.

“If India can take over 550 million people out of open defecation in four years, Nigeria can also take 47 million people out of it between now and 2025,” Mrs Akpa stated.