By George George Idowu
The United Nation Agency, UNICEF, in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and private stakeholders has teamed up together towards eradicating open defecation in Nigeria.
Supported at the highest levels of government, the campaign aims to propel the country towards achieving this ambitious goal.
The initiative is part of the “Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet” campaign, a transformative behavioural movement aimed at addressing Nigeria’s sanitation crisis.
A key focus of the campaign is to foster strong partnerships between businesses and government agencies, particularly to provide affordable sanitation facilities in underserved areas.
According to the 2021 Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASHNORM) statistics, only 18% of Nigerians around 37 million people have access to safely managed sanitation services.
To bridge this gap, the Clean Nigeria Campaign was launched as a national initiative to reduce open defecation and make the country open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2030.
Chizoma Opara, Deputy Director of the campaign at the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, described the effort as key to eliminating open defecation across the country.
She said, however, that achieving this goal requires greater involvement from the private sector, which plays a critical role in enhancing sanitation infrastructure.
Dali Otunla, Senior Director of Investor Relations and Sustainability, noted that private sector organizations are not solely profit-driven but also contribute to public initiatives through revenue allocations.
However, Otunla stressed the need for the public sector to create the right frameworks to support collaboration.
Despite some progress, the number of people practising open defecation in Nigeria has increased from 46 million in 2019 to 48 million in 2021. While 126 local government areas have been declared open defecation-free, this number remains insufficient in light of the country’s growing population.
The Clean Nigeria Campaign seeks to unite businesses, government bodies, and civil society to bring about long-term, sustainable improvements in sanitation services and practices, with the goal of eradicating open defecation and promoting healthier communities nationwide.