Some civil servants and residents of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital have confessed that they engage in open defecation due to lack of toilets, even in their workplaces.

A WHO/ UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for water supply and sanitation rated Oyo as the third highest in the prevalence rate of open defecation in Nigeria, after Plateau and Ekiti states.

A resident of Mokola area of Ibadan, Kehinde Adesokan, said that the practice of open defecation remained a widespread phenomenon within Ibadan metropolis due to lack of toilet facilities and pipe borne water.

“There is also a lack or shortage of public toilets in public places like markets, car parks, garages and schools,” he said.

A local government worker in Ibadan South-West Local Government Council, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed that people preferred to defecate in the canals, bushes and gutters.

“Some people use light polythene bags and potty pots for toileting. They defecate inside it and discard the faeces into either nearby bushes, drainages or public dump sites.

“This is an eyesore. If you visit places like Oke Bola, Ogunpa, and some shops in Agbeni markets, people defecate inside polythene bags within their shops and dispose of them in refuse bins within the market,” the official said.

A female clerk at  the customary court within the Mapo complex, who spoke to NAN under the condition of anonymity, said that officials usually engaged in a practice she described as “short-put”-  whereby they excrete into polythene bags or on paper spread on the floor and which is later thrown away.

Another staff of the council, equally who did not want his name published, said that he and many other workers have devised the method of use of over-the-counter drugs to prevent them from going to the toilet at work.

Some other people interviewed by NAN said that they dig the ground to cover-up their faeces.

Shedding more light on the matter, a commercial driver at Oja’ba, Tajudeen Oyelere, said that he and his colleagues often spend no fewer than five minutes before getting to the nearest public pit toilet available.

Mr Oyelere added that they sometimes meet a queue of people waiting to use the pit toilet due to the crowd of people visiting the place.

A teenager, who simply identified himself as Alaba, said that since his birth at Oja’ba area, he has been using the ‘shot-put system’ of defecation due to non-availability of toilets in his residence.

At the pepper market in Moniya, Akinyele Local Government Area, Ibadan, investigation by NAN revealed that though the market has a toilet facility; it was dirty and in an unhygienic state.

It was also discovered that the toilet facility was inadequate for the number of people that daily visit the market to buy and sell as well as transporters from the northern region who bring goods.

The chairman of Ibadan North-West Local Government, Rahman Adepoju, said that open defecation was archaic, and no developed or developing nation should accommodate or condone it.

He said the council, in the bid to curb the practice, began sanitation exercises every other Thursday, in every ward in the local government area.

Mr Adepoju said the council also repaired some toilets which were in a state of disrepair and constructed additional ones in the areas where there were none.

He added that the local government had also begun the construction of some boreholes in the Onireke area, to ensure that the people did not lack water to use.

“There is a serious need for public enlightenment regarding this, so we will move around the areas to sensitise people on the dangers of the menace -open defecation.

“This is because many of the residents don’t know anything about the dangers of open defecation even to their own health and environment.

“The heart desire of the state government is that the citizens are well taken care of, so we must all join hands to work together and make sure that this goal is achieved,” he said.

Meanwhile, Adetunji Akinpelu, a director in the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, said that the Oyo State Government was committed to ending open defecation.

Mr Akinpelu said the present administration in the state since its inception had taken proactive steps to curb open defecation in the state.

He added that the government, in partnership with private organisations had embarked on erection of public and mobile toilets in strategic locations across major towns in the state.

The director said that his ministry would soon commence checks on residential buildings, especially in Ibadan less cities, to identify erring landlords.

He maintained that there was an existing law that prohibited open defecation across the state.

According to him, the law makes it an offence for anyone caught violating the law and such erring person is liable to a fine of N5,000.

He said that the law also makes it mandatory for owners of habitable and business structures to provide toilet facilities in such structures.

He said that property owners, who fail to make toilet provisions for his/her structures, are liable to three months’ imprisonment or N50,000 fine. 

(NAN)