Open Defecation: ’How we eat, drink our faeces’ without knowing

By Nkiru ogodumbe

The health implication of open education is dreadful and has continued to pose danger to the lives of millions of helpless citizens not only in Nigeria but also in most parts of African continent due to lack of potable water, poor basic toilets facilities and poor sanitation.

In this report, Nkiru ogodumbe examines the attitude of some Nigerians who in most cases defecate in open spaces and streams that serves as their sources of drinking water without recourse to the environmental and health consequences.

The practice of open defecation is a global development and health issue facing developing nations. It is an ancient practice where people excrete in bushes, rivers, lakes, streams and other open spaces outside the designated toilets.

This can occur deliberately due to unwholesome cultural practices, superstitions, and personal unhygienic behaviours. It could also be as a result of unavailable or lack of access to modern toilet facilities.

While some communities go through this practice due to lack of basic social amenities, some rural communities tie this practice to their culture and tradition, hence making it a big challenge to overcome.

The United Nations had in 2010 declared access to safe drinking water and sanitation, a basic human right but this is not yet enforced in Nigeria.

For example, Pika like many other communities in Nigeria, practising open defecation is a community in Benue state ravaged by poverty and all forms of environmental and economic retardation.

It is a community where the practice of open defecation is view as a normal practice. Located about a few miles away from Makurdi, Mbatiav, Gboko local government area, life for the people of Pika is apparently pathetic.

Like many other disadvantaged communities in Benue State where the presence of government is not felt in any way, the people have for many years relied on well and the stream water for their subsistence life.

The women in the communities have to struggle daily walking long distances to the stream to fetch water for drinking, cooking and other household use.

Most importantly, lack of potable water has posed many health challenges to the people in rural areas in the state, as children and even adults have contracted water-borne diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and typhoid fever among others due to the common practice of open defecation.

The people of the community depend on the local stream as their only source of water, filling an all-purpose gap, from bathing, laundry, cooking and drinking – without any form of purification.

On average, women and young children in Pika community have to visit the stream six to seven times daily. Sadly, the residential area is quite distant to the stream.

Left with no alternative, day and night, people have to pass through bush paths to scoop the oily, dirty, coloured and smelling water from the stream to meet their basic domestic needs.

Speaking with the Daily  Hint a  Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Dennis Ortese Yiyeh CSSp, who also resides in the community, said that water poverty has posed a threat to the people of the community leaving them with no other alternative but to defecate in the open.

“The children have to wake very early and trek down to the river every day. In a few cases, some children get injured in the process. It is important to fetch this water before going to school because their parents depend on them.

‘’On average, women and young children have to visit the stream six-seven times daily. The water from the river smells sometimes because the common practice here is open defecation and when it misted; the water washes the faeces back to the stream that serves the community.

‘’Sadly, that is how we eat and drink our faeces. Some of us are aware of the health implications of this but since there is no other alternative, we use the water like that.