Nigeria is ranked second, next to India in the practice of open defecation in the world, while an estimated 48 million Nigerians were involved in open defecation, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, Minister of Water Resources, has stated.
Adamu also stated that citizen’s access to sanitation declined from 30 percent in 2010 to 28 percent in 2015.
The Minister spoke weekend at Iyamho, Estako West local government area of Edo State in a paper entitled, “Water Sanitation and Hygiene For Sustainable Development,” he presented at Edo University during the 3rd Founder’s Day ceremony.
He listed the challenges of curbing open defecation in the country to include lack of adequate political support and poor coordination of efforts between all stakeholders, particularly the different tiers of government.
He said, “Challenges of sanitation are not limited to rural areas, it is equally a huge problem in urban areas, especially in public places and urban slums.
“Recent studies have further established that pipe borne water supply especially in the urban areas is on the decline from 30 percent national coverage in 1990 to about 7 percent in 2015. This unpleasant revelation made it necessary that we embark on aggressive effort to address the situation.
“Nigeria is unable to attain the MDG targets for access to water supply and sanitation. This is due to poor investments, low capacity and other challenges in the sub -sector.
“It was recently estimated that about $5billion annual investment will be required to meet the Sustainable Development Goal, SDG, targets. The current level of investment is less than half a Billion Dollars.”
On the way toward, he stated that the Federal Government was implementing a reform programme for State Water Agencies to improve capacity, revenue generation and towards efficient operations and management of facilities.
