‘1.8m Ekiti Residents Engage in Open Defecation’

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the European Union (EU) revealed during the week that about 1.8 million people out of the 2.7 residents of Ekiti State engage in open defecation, which amounts to 60.8 per cent of the menace nationally. The organisations, while stating this at a two-day media networking and alliance building workshopon Water Sanitation and Hygiene and Open Defecation-Free Campaign, held in Ijero Ekiti, Ijero Local Government Area of Ekiti State, said the observation has informed the body’s increased campaign against the menace in the state.

The UNICEF/EU delegation, led by Mohsena Islam, a WASH specialist from UNICEF, said the two international organisations have been funding the programme and rendering technical supports to reduce the scourge.

He explained that they have brought improvement to 250 towns and communities by providing 10 toilets per community. “We have also provided technical supports in 313 communities, for them to know various ways to build and take ownership of low cost latrines and how to repair them in case of damage,” he said.

Lending her voice, a WASH specialist in the state, Mrs. Lanre Ayeni, said with the new tactics of persuasion, people were now gradually changing their perception about defecating openly. “Advocacy for open defecation-free in Ekiti and good water sanitation is yielding results. Enforcement in the past by Community Led Total Sanitation coordinators had failed, what we now use is persuasion and people are gradually changing their perception about this concept.”