By Obiabin Onukwugha
In Bayelsa State, disposing untreated sewage into the water bodies within Yenagoa the capital city is contributing to open defecation.
Last December the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Professor Terlumun Utsev, listed Bayelsa as among states in Nigeria with Open Defecation Free local government areas, after certifying Kolokuma/Opokuma LGA as ODF.
But Yenagoa the capital city is far from being open defecation free. Apart from the fact that most adjourning communities of the city practise open defecation by building their toilets by the river bank, in Yenagoa, the sewage are dumped into the river without being treated.
Sewage contains high levels of nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. When released into water bodies, these nutrients promote the growth of algae and aquatic plants. This excessive growth, known as eutrophication, depletes oxygen levels in the water, leading to the death of fish and other aquatic organisms.
Also, untreated sewage contains harmful pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can cause waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A, and gastroenteritis. These diseases can spread through contaminated water sources and cause serious illness or even death, particularly in areas with limited access to clean water and sanitation facilities.
Investigation by NatureNews revealed that while most buildings have toilet facilities within Yenagoa, effective disposal of the sewage when the soakaways become full has continued to pose a problem for residents.
It was also observed that there are no public toilets provided by the state government as a way of curbing open defecation withing the capital city.
Further checks revealed that most of the parks within the city lacked toilet facilities, while some residents still practise what is termed in local parlance as “shot put”, where people defecate in cellophane bags or papers and throw into nearby river, bushes or uncompleted buildings.
This is exacerbated as there is no law in the state mandating public places to give access to passersby use their toilets in case of emergency as obtained in some states of the country.
A resident, Mgbo, told our reporter there is no law mandating public places as banks or eateries to allow residents ease themselves. “I am not aware of such law. If you are pressed you can plead with the security man for understanding to let you use their toilet but they can’t just let you go in and use their facility, whether in banks or eateries,” Mgbo said.
For environmentalist, Morris Alagoa, raw sewage disposal is the next highest polluter of the environment in Bayelsa State besides oil exploratory activities, flood and erosion.
Alagoa who spoke with our reporter in Yenagoa, lamented how open defecation has deprived the people of their natural source of drinking water.
He said: “If you remove the oil industries-induced pollution, you talk about flood and erosion, you talk about deforestation, massive deforestation and then the issue of sewage disposal.
“Like I told you, Bayelsa is most deltaic and like one Prof. Nwachukwu will say in UNIPORT. He said the Ijaw man may be returning from farm, exhausted, as he is paddling home, if he is thirsty he will just put his hand in the water and then drink. But you can’t do that now.
“In those days we can go to our farms, you carry cassava, yam or you carry farina, carry fish or you say you will roast something in the farm and eat. You won’t carry water from home because you know you can get water from the swamps and they are good enough to drink. But today the swamps are highly polluted; oil industry-induced pollution, but now, sewage disposal.
“They are disposing raw sewage somewhere in Yenagoa local government within the capital city without being treated. And if the Ijaw man will drink like that in their environment, and the rivers, the streams, the riverlets, they are linked in one way or the other. If people will be drinking from those type of water may be far away from the point that you are discharging this tankers of sewage every day, you are poisoning them and you increase the health bills of families; children, women, elders.
“If Port Harcourt in Rivers State do not have sewage treatment plant Bayelsa needs it because all around here is drinking water. It is only when you are approaching the Atlantic, Nembe, part of southern Ijaw, Ekeremor, part of it, then you meet salt water.
“So discharging sewage into the water without treatment is like open defecation which is not acceptable. You know shortly after the creation of Bayelsa State most landlords didnt have water systems in their houses. Most people will just defecate in their houses and then they do what they call short put. And also some of those who go to nearby bushes to ease themselves, we also heard how pythons swallowed some of them. So it is not good.”
Alagoa, who is the the Program Manager, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) Resource Centre, Yenagoa, highlighted the need for private-sector collaboration and investments with the state government as a way of addressing open defecation in the state.
“And to take care of these, if land will be allocated, people can invest in those areas; public toilets where you will take care of the sanitary situation there. Some times you may be at the park or moving around and you are pressed but you don’t know where to go to. So if government can take this as a sanitation issue and very seriously, provide land spaces, people can apply.
“Government may build it and lease it out. Check whether this person has the capacity to manage this place and from time to time the sanitary inspectors, the public health officers go, as they go to abattoirs to check if actually they are up to international standard without molestation or harassment. We don’t want to hear of rape in those places or harassment of women, girls or even the males.
“So, if we have this in place, it is one of the ways we can look at the state as being developed, because development has many indices. So one of the ways is to have properly run public toilets, properly run and also to encourage all landlords to have toilets in their buildings and not to allow people to be going into the bushes or to the riverside to ease themselves,” Alagoa stated.
In further proffering solution, the environmentalist emphasised the need for research and effective public enlightenment to curb the practise.
“It will also be nice if the government, individuals, NGOs go into research to know how to tackle it. Even in our communities, most persons go to toilet at the waterside where they bathe, wash their clothes, that is where they defecate either early in the morning in the evening. Some women, if they cannot do it at their water front, they use their canoe to cross over to the otherside, find where there os little bush, hide and then they defecate.
“No. If we want to solve this problem, then we think about, if you have soakaway in your house if this soakaway is filled how do you easily evacuate it? We hear there are chemicals that you can use and everything will just go off. Can we get these things so that we can also advise in our communities. They can easily do that so that people in our communities no longer go to the waterside to bathe and go to toilet.
“So, its left for us to do the public enlightenment and also to encourage communities that are within the Yenagoa and environs to have well maintained public toilets, then also encourage those is the far-flown communities to prevent us from going to the waterside to defecate as it used to be,” he added.