Clement Adeyi, Osogbo
Open defecation is the human practice of passing excreta outside or in the open environment instead of into a toilet. It is a common practice in Nigeria just like other countries in the world and remains a challenge because of the adverse health implications.
The 2018 National Outcome Routine Mapping (NORM) report indicated that 47 million Nigerians defecate in the open, while the country loses N455 billion annually due to poor sanitation. Another study revealed that Nigeria ranks second among countries practising open defecation globally after India.
In November 2018, a state of emergency was declared in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector, to make Nigeria an open defecation-free country. The term, Open Defecation-Free (ODF), is used to describe communities that have shifted to using a toilet instead of open defecation.
Osun is one of the states where open defecation is trending. A particular community, Oleyo, is a case study of the menace. It is a major suburb in Osogbo, the state capital. The physical setting of the rustic environment made up of corroded buildings gives the place away as not only a ghetto but also a slum.
In this community, there is a cluster of residential buildings and residents who have been living there over the years in squalor that the place has been turned to by natural disasters, particularly canals, flood and erosion.
But out of these maladies, open defecation is the major challenge facing the people. Daily Sun gathered that the flood, canal and erosion occasioned by the deluge of refuse blocking the waterways in the area has made building of toilets difficult and poses challenge to the feasibility of ODF target.
At Oleyo, a deluge of refuse at the dumpsite competes with the residents for space. It is as thick and dark as an ocean. The dumpsite tucked among a cluster of residential houses serves as a “public toilet” to majority of residents who do not have toilets.
The surroundings of the dumpsite and the houses very close to it are dotted with pockets of faeces and/or excreta. Take any step in the environment and you land on shits defecated in different corners by children and adults too.
In broad day light when our correspondent visited the place, a young man and children were foumd defecating, while a girl of about 12 years came to dump shit.
“Don’t mind me o. I live around here. I don’t have toilet in my house. This is where we do it. Wetin man go do? One needs to poo na. Thank God we have a place like this here,” was the response by the young man who preferred anonymity.
For the residents, the dumpsite is an unwanted neighbour they continue to live with. They cannot but endure the mess and horrifying stench that ooze out of the horrible debris intermittently.
The only public toilet in Oleyo was built by the military regime many years ago was submerged by the heaps of refuse. When the toilet was filled to the brim, there was no attempt to evacuate it. People resorted to dumping faeces around it until it could no longer be accessed for evacuation.
Since then, open defecation became a trend in the area with the dumpsite as the major functioning public toilet. This caused lack of water because the huge piles of refuse blocked the only stream in the area. The stream, which source is unknown surfaced in the area in 1960 and remained the only source of water supply to the people until it was blocked by refuse.
A landlord, 80-year-old Pa Lasisi Adeyemi, disclosed that apart from being the only source of water supply to the people, the stream water was medicinal. He claimed it had healing powers so much that whenever sick people drank the water, they were healed: “We don’t have any public toilet or potable water in our area here. Our lives are in danger. We are dying here. We want Governor Gboyega Oyetola to come to our rescue.”
Adeola Oluwatoyin, said: “There was a time Wolewole (sanitation officers) came to seal our houses because we did not have toilets. Later, government constructed the bridge that links Oja Oba to Sabo but the abandoned heavy heap of sand that blocked waterways here after rain. Since then, the erosion problem increased. We are appealing to Governor Oyetola to help us.”
Mrs Kafayat Waheed said: “Our husbands have been pleading with politicians that are from this area to help us but they have failed to listen to our cries. Government should please help us clear the refuse, construct drainages and build public toilets for us.”
Mrs Fasila Daud said: “We live in danger on daily basis but we don’t have anywhere to go. Our children are falling sick. They suffer from diarrhoea and cholera. It is only God that has been helping us. Government has to look in our direction here. There is an election ward close to this place. We voted for them. So, they must give us the blessing of our votes.”
The General Manager of Osun Waste Management Agency, Mr Femi Ogunbamiwo, attributed the Oleyo people’s plight to their refusal to pay the stipulated minimum of N500 per household to the waste management agency for it to pick their wastes: “That is why the waste continued to pile up until it became a huge dumpsite and open defecation centre.”
He, however, lamented that the open defecation menace was not peculiar to the community but a challenge in every part of the state. He disclosed that due to lack of household and public toilets, residents resort to open defecation.
He said that every morning when waste management officers go out on inspection, they see people queue up to defecate around water channels, railways and neighbourhood streams.
Ogunbamiwo added that wastes picked and disposed at the central dumpsite at Egbedi along Iwo Road, Osogbo, contain excreta: “Places where open defecation is very rampant within the state include Ede, Okebale, Okeayepe, and Gbomi.”
He said some landlords in areas such as Okefia, Afonta and Alekwuwodo built houses near waterways channel. He attributed open defecation to influence of tradition whereby some people do not want to use public toilets built by government because they feel that it is a taboo to defecate on another person’s faeces. Fulani residents in line with the tradition prefer to defecate in shallow holes and cover them up.
He disclosed that the state government has already keyed into the Federal Government’s 2025 ODF target through aggressive mobilisation campaign to institutionalise the structure. He said Rural Water and Environmental Sanitation Agency (RUWESA) has started training students, teachers, community and religious leaders on the need to keep their environments clean: “For people who built houses very close to one another, we have encouraged joint ownership of toilets for common sharing.”
RUWESA’s Director of Environmental Sanitation and Hygiene, Mr Segun Moyinoluwa, said: “Government has completed building of toilets in all the elementary schools in three local government areas including Odo-Otin, Ayedaade and Ifedayo. Efforts are also on going to replicate same in the secondary schools. Facilities have been provided for about 102 schools in other local government areas. Government also provided toilets for all the primary health centres in the three local government areas.
“The community people, including house owners, are encouraged to provide household toilets for themselves and are monitored by the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), to comply until the state hits the ODF status. We now have over 500 open defecation-free communities in the rural areas.
“The challenge is mainly in the urban areas because of the heterogeneous nature of the people living there. This is because it is difficult to gather them together for sensitisation as it is easily done in the rural areas.
“Insufficient environmental officers to monitor noncompliance with environmental laws and open defecation culprits as well as adequate funding are the major challenges militating against government’s poise to achieve ODF status in 2025.”