By Obiabin Onukwugha
Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, often referred to as Nigeria’s ‘Garden City,’ is renowned for its picturesque landscapes and vibrant urban life.
As the capital of an oil-producing state, the city’s demographic diversity spans both low and high-income earners. The city boasts of special delicacies and meals such as fisherman soup, Bole (roast plantain, yam, potatoes laced with fish and gravy), Onunu, which are second to none across Nigeria.
Night life and pleasure is not left out. The beauties that adorn the street, will make you want to visit again and again, thus boosting the hospitality industry in the state.
Despite its cultural richness and population ranking fifth among Nigerian cities, Port Harcourt grapples with a concealed issue that contradicts its welcoming facade.
Indeed city of Portharcourt stinks! Walking by the wayside in most streets and roads of the garden city, including Government Reserved Areas (GRA), one can hardly breath fresh air due to offensive odours that ooze out of the gutters and drainages.
An investigation by this reporter revealed that most residents, especially low income earners practice open defecation, that contribute to the stinky atmosphere, aside other environentally-related issues.
Most persons who spoke with this reporter in the course of investigation, attributed open defecation to dilapidated toilet facilities in most homes. Others also noted the absence of toilet facilities in especially make-shift homes popularly known as ‘batchers’.
A resident at the D/Line area of Port Harcourt, Ngozi, noted that many persons practice what they refer to in local parlance as ‘short put’. A situation where you toilet into a cellophane bag and throw away at a distance during night hours.
“Most of the houses here the toilets are bad and you know toilet is a natural thing. So you wait at night to do short put.
“Also most every person who live in make-shift houses and those boys living under the flyover, also do short put because they don’t have where to toilet”, she said.
A former contract staff with a refuse disposal company who gave his name as Victor, also lamented to this reporter how they encounter faeces in line of their duty.
He said: “We used to encounter faeces in most of the receptacles. At times people just go there and defecate openly, while some wrap in cellophane bag and drop it there.”
Also, a resident of Rumuolumeni, who gave his name as Ambassador Ben, told this reporter that they practice open defecation due to bad toilet facilities in the area he lives.
He said: “There are about 14 apartments in the compound where I live with a minimum of four person’s per family. My family is six, myself, my wife and four kids.
Related Posts
“Where we are living, there is no good toilet facility. In the compound I live, the soak away system is blocked. Almost every rainy season the soak away overflows and we can’t flush. So for a very long time no one uses the toilet, it has been locked up.
“What we do is, defecate in a cellophane bag and put it inside dust bin then at night we throw it away alongside our refuse at the refuse dump or inside the river. But personally, I go to the river because where I live, the river is about ten minutes trek so I go to the river bank to toilet.
“Not just me, there are other men in the environment where I live who also go to the river bank to toilet. Usually, the tenants will contribute to pay sewage disposers to come evacuate it but you know the situation of the country right now, there’s no money anywhere. And this is what goes on in many compounds here.”
Again, Favour, a resident at Rex Lawson area of Borokiri old Port Harcourt township said they use public toilets built by the riverside.
“Some houses in the street have toilet facilities but majority of the tenants use public toilet. The public toilet is by the river. This area is surrounded by waterfronts. So most persons living in the streets use the public toilets at the waterfronts.
“Adults, teenagers and adolescents pay twenty naira per day to use the toilet, while children don’t pay. The toilet is actually built by the government but there are those managing it and that’s the reason why we pay.
“If every compound could have a toilet facility it will be okay, at least it will reduce the risk of infections”, she stated.
Another resident at the Enugu Waterfront area of old Port Harcourt, who gave his name as Micah, told this reporter that they use public toilet and pay a sum of N20 per use.
“I have lived here for over ten years and I and my family use public toilet. You pay the sum of twenty naira, both children and adults, whenever you want to use it. So if you have a running stomach you could spend one hundred to two hundred naira a day, excluding the amount you spend for your wife and children.”
In reacting to this situation Prof. Daniel Ugwu, the Country Director and CEO, African Centre for Rural Development and Environment, told this reporter that with open defecation the environment is polluted and could affect the health of the people.
“With open defecation, the environment is polluted, the soil is polluted, water is polluted and the relationship between climate change and open defecation is that because of climate change, Rivers and lakes begin to decrease and also source of water for drinking becomes a problem.
“With this scenario, people are no longer afraid of going to running or stationery water to take water to drink. This is now linked up to health problems; Diarrhea diseases and waterborne diseases and other diseases that have to do with hot weather. This is the relationship between open defecation, climate change and resource use, especially water, land and even air.”
He blamed the challenge on poverty, saying, “There is no awareness on open defecation and again it’s even complicated by poverty because no matter the amount of awareness you create and someone cannot build a small latrine, then what do you expect him to do. So there is a link between poverty and open defecation.”
He called on government both at the federal and state levels to take conscious steps in providing toilet facilities for public use to solve the problem of open defecation and achieve the 2030 target of end to open defecation in Nigeria.
In Rivers State, there are environmental laws, under which the Rivers State Environmental Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) and other related bodies are established.
While sanitation, illegal trading and parking is at the core of moves by the Rivers State government to maintain the Garden City Status of the capital city, there is no known effort by the state government, both past and present administrations to address the issue of open defecation.
