More than 60% of households in Nigeria share toilet while more Nigerians have access to mobile phones than toilets
The growth of mobile phone penetration has outpaced that of access to sanitation particularly toilets.
A new UNICEF report showed more Nigerians have access to mobile phones than those with access to toilets. Zaid Jurji, chief of Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), UNICEF, made this disclosurewhile speaking at a workshop on European Union Niger Delta water project, in Rivers state.
In his remarks, Jurji said while 140 million Nigerians have mobile phones, only 97 million have access to improved sanitation. He added that the allocation to the health sector is grossly inadequate and has suffered neglect over the years. In the 2018 budget for instance, N352 billion was allocated to the sector out of the budget of N9.1 trillion.
He noted that this neglect is responsible for several health challenges in the country as well as poor sanitation, with children mostly affected.
He added that only 37% of health facilities in the country have at least one usable toilets available for patients while only 39% of Nigerians use an improved toilet that is not shared by more than one household.
According to him, “without toilets, people are forced to defecate in the open leading to exposure to disease such as diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid.
Mr Jurji further said “122 million Nigerians, including 87,000 children under the age of five, die each year from diarrhoea, with the country losing N455 billion annually due to poor sanitation.”
As of 2016, 28.7 percent of the Nigerian population still practise open defecation..
On the global stage, 2.4 billion persons around the world still don’t have access to a functioning toilet, with 1.1 billion of that number defecating in the open.
