Senate Considers Bill To Check Open Defecation

Revelations have emerged that Nigeria may be losing over three billion dollars annually due to open defecation and poor sanitation.

To check the situation, the Senate on Wednesday considered a Bill for an Act to establish the Clean Nigeria Agency to keep the country clean and check open urination/open defecation.

In his lead submission on the general principles of the Bill, Sen. Clifford Ordia (PDP-Edo) disclosed that in spite of Nigeria’s giant posture, with a population of over 200 million people, and the largest market in the continent, “the country wears a shameful cloak of being the leading nation in the world with the highest number of people practicing open urination and defecation estimated at over 46 million people.

“The practice has had a negative effect on the populace and on the economy, making it almost impossible for the country to meet the 2030 deadline of achieving goal six of the United Nations Sustainable development goal,” he added.

Ordia said that considering the negative impacts and the socio-economic impact of urinating and defecating in the open, providing a legal frame work and creating an agency in the form of a subsidiary legislation was not only important but long overdue.

Contributing Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha (PDP-Taraba) said the Bill should be given the needed support so that the country would come out a clean nation, a clean people with clean attitude.

The Bill has since been referred to the Senate Committee on Water Resources to report back in three weeks