Rauf Oyewole, Bauchi
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Bauchi State Government and other partners have intensified efforts to end open defecation as 9 of 20 local government areas have been certified open defecation free in the state.
Recently, Bauchi local government was certified and declared open defecation free while another LGA is waiting for declaration. Presently, about 50 percent of the state have ended defecation indiscriminately while efforts were being channelled on the rest of the areas.
Speaking on Friday, the Director General of the Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency (BASEPA), Mr. Mahmood Muhammad Bose, said that it took a lot of enlightenment, sensitisation and enforcement to get people to desist from the practice.
He commended UNICEF for supporting the government agencies with technical support in its activities.
Bose said that the government has plans to construct public toilets at every 50 meters in the state.
Also speaking, the Managing Director of RUWASSA, Adamu Sabo said that the state had engagements with all the 1,400 communities in Bauchi local government where they educated them on the dangers of open defecation. “We now took a collective decision to stop open defecation through the construction of improved latrines.
“At the local government level, we have the WASH unit where we have principal officers that usually go for the implementation activities and community mobilization. At the community level, we also have the WASH-COM, the local hygiene promoters, these are structures that drive the entire process at the community level.
“Again, there is also the aspect of the toilet business owners (TBOs) who were trained on how to construct improved toilets in the communities. We realised that the construction of latrines in the past had a lot of challenges, particularly in the rainy season where the toilets usually collapse.
“To solve this challenge, we identified micro financial institutions who give soft loans to construct improved latrines through the Toilet Business Owners who are trained to construct improved latrines in households,” he said.