Sanitation is a whole market that we have not even scratched its surface in Enugu State – Chika Mbah, MD ENRUWASSA
The vast untapped potential of the Enugu sanitation market was emphasized by the Managing Director of Enugu State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (ENRUWASSA) during the 2nd episode of the Enugu WASH Radio series.
Despite the risks associated with open defecation, including environmental contamination and the spread of diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, and typhoid, 48% of the Enugu population still practice open defecation, according to the 2021 #WASHNORM data.
The Nigerian Government launched a national campaign tagged ‘Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet’ to jump-start the country’s journey towards becoming Open Defecation Free (ODF) by 2025, but Enugu State still lags behind with no Local Government Area (LGA) in the state amongst the over a hundred LGAs currently certified as open defecation free in Nigeria.
The present Government of Enugu State, from its inception in 2023, has committed to change this narrative through disruptive innovative approach.
To educate the public and raise awareness about the progress and challenges in transforming the State’s sanitation sector, the discussion on Episode 2 of the WASH Radio series centered on “Prioritizing Sanitation and Hygiene in Enugu State”.
The highly informative episode had resource persons drawn from both government and civil society sector, comprising Chika Mbah, Managing Director of ENRUWASSA, Christopher Ogbu, Coordinator of Enugu Small Town Water Supply and Sanitation Agency and Mr. Daniel Ukwu, the ED of Daniel Ukwu Leadership Foundation.
The resource persosns highlighted some of the pioneering initiatives by the Government to address the sanitation crisis in the state, some of which include:
- Community Collaboration: The state government is currently working with 135 self-nominated autonomous communities in the state to ensure that they have water and toilet facilities at the health centers and market places. These Communities are also passing ODF bye-laws with some of the communities mandating that mobile toilets be used for every public/social events in their respective communities.
- Prioritization of WASH-in-Schools: The resource persons emphasized that each of the Smart Schools being built by the state government across the state have provisions for 22 in-built toilet facilities.
- Executive Order: The respurce persons stressed that the state government has demontrated a strong political will to address the menace of open defecation in the state by passing an executive order 006, which bans open defecation while further stepping it down by ensuring that all 17 Local Governments in the state also passed bye-laws banning open defecation.
- Toilet Business Incentive: In furtherance to Government’s commitment to prioritize sanitation in the state, the resource persons satated that the state government has adopted a strategy to incentivize private investors to tap into the vast sanitation market in Enugu State by signing partnership agreements (MoU) with potential private investors in toilet business in Enugu State.
Listeners who called in to the radio program commended the government’s efforts to address open defecation in the state, but emphasized the need for deliberate and rigorous enforcement of the law prohibiting this practice to ensure meaningful progress. This includes prosecuting house owners (‘Landlords’) who build and rent houses without making provisions for toilet facilities in their buildings. Another Listener who called in stressed the need to improve water supply situation in the state, for progress to be made in curbing the practice of open defecation across the state.
Tune in to #SolidFM 100.9, Enugu this Friday by 9AM (GMT+1), as we bring to you another insightful episode of the #EnuguWASHRadioSeries.
