Oladotun Roy
November 19th has been set aside by UN-Water since 2003 to commemorate World Toilet Day across the globe. In fulfilling this purpose Federal Ministry of Environment with all stakeholders converged at Barcelona Hotels in Abuja to commemorate this day. Theme for this year’s commemoration is “End Open Defecation”. It is targeted at ending all forms of open defecation in the public place, open lawn, open gutters, sidewalks as well as open drainage.
End Open Defecation Campaign is being coordinated by the WSSCC, together with UN Millennium Campaign, Unicef, and the UN Department of Public Information, under the leadership of the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Jan Eliasson.
According to UNICEF WASH Consultant Mr Markatti at the event said recent statistics has placed ‘Nigeria among the top 5 countries that still engage in open defecation’ which is quite poor.
Mr Markatti UNICEF WASH Consultant
Minister of Environment, who was ably represented by the Permanent Secretary to the Minister said all hands must on deck for the End Open Defecation Campaign to yield result here in Nigeria and by extension Africa and other part of the world where open defecation still prevalent.
It is the duty of every member of the society to ensure that our environment is clean and neat so as to be free from both preventable and communicable diseases such as cholera, diahrrea and even polio which Nigerian government has been committed to its total eradication she said.