‘Over 5m Residents Practicing Open Defecation In Oyo’

The 2021 Water Sanitation and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASHNORM) report has revealed that about 5,020,920 residents, representing 53.7 per cent of the total population in Oyo State, practice open defecation, while about 3,621,520, representing 43 per cent use unimproved toilet facilities.

The report also disclosed that only 8.4 per cent of households have access to basic hand washing services.

WASH specialist at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr Monday Johnson, at a 2-day media dialogue on Open Defecation Free (ODF), South West States of Nigeria, in Oyo state on Thursday, averred that the state has the highest number of people still practicing Open Defecation in South West, Nigeria.

Sadly, Johnson said this has led to disease outbreaks like cholera and hundreds of under-five deaths; reduced school attendance; stunting; wasting; malnutrition; poor productivity and loss of GDP.

In the same vein, the director of sanitation, Oyo state, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Obafemi Titilayo, has attributed the worrisome situation of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Oyo state to poor maintenance culture; inadequate facilities and equipment; inadequate skilled personnel and poorly motivated Local Government Area (LGA) WASH departments/units staff and unserviceable/inadequate basic WASH facilities and equipment such as drilling rigs, sewage disposal trucks and vehicles for monitoring and supervision.

Other factors are the dearth of basic office equipment; poorly sensitized WASH stakeholders, including LG officials, LGA legislative council members, heads of communities, on the new National Policy on Water Supply and Sanitation and non- availability of WASH account in almost all the LGAs and poor attention by some council authority on WASH programmes, Titlayo averred.

To change the narrative in the state however, the director disclosed that the state government, with support from UNICEF, developed and launched the roadmap of ending Open Defecation in Oyo state by 2028.

The sum of N80 million was pooled by the state government and UNICEF for implementation of Sanitation Revolving Fund (SRF) at a single digit interest rate of nine per cent to households for sanitation facilities construction, Titilayo averred, adding that, this is to create increasing access to sanitation and hygiene.

In his response to the report, the commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Dotun Oyelade assured that the state government is working assiduously to curb the trend of Open Defecation in the state, while pointing out that many cautionary and enlightenment billboards had been mounted at strategic places across the state to raise the level of awareness.