The Federal Ministry of Water Resources and National Orientation Agency (NOA) have called for concerted efforts among Nigerians to end open defecation by 2025 through the building of toilet facilities.
The Minister, Mr Suleiman Adamu, and the Director-General of NOA, Dr Garba Abari, made the call on Wednesday during a one-day sensitisation campaign in Abakaliki.
The campaign is on Open-Defecation-Free Nigeria for Community Orientation and Mobilization Officers (COMOs) for the thirteen Local Government Areas of the state.
Adamu, who was represented by Mrs Chizoba Opara, the Acting National Coordinator for the “Clean Nigeria: use the toilet” campaign, said they embarked on the campaign to sensitise COMOs to enable them to come up with an action plan before the end of the exercise.
He also said that the ministry took advantage of NOA’s wide reach to get to the urban and rural areas of the state to end the trend.
“In this campaign, we expect states to come up with their road maps and targets to end open defecation.
“These are sensitisation and awareness that we brought to states for them to understand that we need to be in the race together,” Adamu said.
Abari, who was represented by the Deputy Director, NOA, Mrs Theresa Maduekwe, said that realising open defecation free nation by 2025 was possible, if individuals could get involved in the campaign.
He also encouraged the practice of hand washing and wash facilities to be in place, describing the practice as key to good health.
“The open defecation free Nigeria 2025 is achievable when everybody is involved and start building toilets at homes and public places.
“This practice affects us. Stop the act, build one and use the toilet,” Abari said.
Meanwhile, the State Director of the agency, Dr Emma Abah, said that 47 million Nigerians practice open defecation.
Abah said that if nothing was done to end the trend in the next ten years, the number of people who practice the act would increase.
“The adverse impact of open defecation can be judged from the fact that one gram of feaces of a person contains 10,000,000 viruses, 1,000,000 bacteria, 1,000 parasite cyst and 100 parasite egg and pathogens.
“Our objective is to make the state open defecation free,” Abah said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the exercise featured training, technical and interactive sessions with COMOs.
Also, lectures were presented on the health impact of the practice, poor wash and objective of the programme, among others, by resource persons from the ministry and Ebonyi State Rural Water Sanitation Agency.(NAN)
