THE SUN
The city of Ibadan is the picturesque capital of Oyo State. It is renowned for its rich cultural heritage, hospitality, prestigious educational institutions, vibrant community system, civil disturbance, war-like character, and high sense of pride.
However, behind its facade of beauty lies a concerning reality, with a significant number of residents living perilously close to rivers without proper sanitation facilities and access to safe water for drinking.
The people, living very close to rivers and streams in the heart of Ibadan, told Saturday Sun that they are the forgotten ones in Ibadan, because they have not been enjoying social amenities from the government. “The government has neglected us. They don’t care if we die,” they chorused in interviews with this newspaper.
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Majority of people inhabiting the affected communities on river banks have been drinking and eating their own and other people’s faeces. But they have not been collecting the faeces for the purpose of drinking and eating for ritual purposes, like a number of ritualistic internet fraudsters.
The people in the affected communities have been compelled to drink and eat their own excreta because they lack access to good toilet facilities, which has led to open defecation on the river banks and throwing of faeces into the rivers. Ironically, the faeces found its way back to the communities through contamination of their wells.
Many residents of the community drink the raw water from the well. They bathe and cook with the water. A high percentage of the residents said they were not financially buoyant to buy sachet water for drinking.
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In 2018, the Federal Government of Nigeria unveiled a National Action Plan to provide safe, sustainable sanitation and hygiene services to Nigerians by 2030, with a view to ending open defecation in the country by 2025.
But Oyo State Government has set a target of 2028 to end open defecation in the state, because the efforts to end open defecation in the state started in 2021, which was about three years after the implementation of the National Action Plan was unveiled in the country.
In a bid to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) status in Oyo State, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has gone into partnership with the Oyo State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (OYORUWASSA), an agency of the Oyo State Government.
The partnership is working assiduously towards ending open defecation in the rural communities in the state. The UNICEF has adopted two rural local governments – Egbeda and Ona Ara – as its pilot project, as part of efforts to end open defecation in the state.
But for the majority of Ibadan residents in communities that are on the banks of rivers and streams, Saturday Sun can exclusively report that they do not have toilet facilities. Those that have the toilet facilities channelled their sewage pipes directly into the rivers and streams, and a few of them that have wells in their houses are not happy that they now have contaminated water in their wells, which poses major health issues to them and the society.
The discovery was made during a tour of communities that are besides rivers in Ibadan. They include Oke-Ofa, Oluyege, Oje, Aderogba, Alafara, Kudeti, and Ogunpa in Ibadan North East Local Government with its headquarters at Iwo Road; Ibadan South East with its headquarters at Mapo, and Ibadan North West with its headquarters at Onireke.
The Sun, RUWASSA, and UNICEF
The reporter had attended a two-day media workshop on ‘Ending Open-Defection (ODF) in Nigeria’, organised by the tripartite of Oyo State Ministry of Information and Orientation, and OYORUWASSA in collaboration with UNICEF, at Kakanfo Hotel, Ring Road, Ibadan, from Wednesday October 18 to Thursday October 19, 2023. It was attended by journalists from the six South West states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti.
The first day of the workshop featured training sessions on water sanitation, access to safe water, importance of good toilet facilities and hand-washing with running water and soap after using the toilet.
The second day of the workshop came with a visit to Jago village in Ona Ara Local Government. It is one of the villages adopted by UNICEF in collaboration with the state government in ending open defecation. The tour of the village revealed that open defecation has become a thing of the past in the village, which was established in 1840, according to the Baale of Jago, Chief Olusegun Oparinde. The road that leads to Jago village from Badeku was like the road to hell.
Oparinde said the intervention of the government and UNICEF has made defecating in open places gone forever in Jago. The intervention has resulted in the construction of about 150 toilets in the village. The villagers have also been enlightened and encouraged to wash their hands with soap and running water every time they used toilets.
His words: “We have more than 1,000 people living in this village. But only my house used to have a functional toilet in this community. Most villagers defecate in the open, especially by roadsides, backyards and in the bush.
“When they were using the bush and roadsides, the faeces get washed into the Osun River in the community. So, we could not drink from it.
“The toilet project has saved the community from open defecation. Before now, we used bushes around us to defecate. We perceived the odour, and you could not trek a distance without stepping on faeces. So, the construction of these toilets came as a huge relief, not just to parents and children, also to the entire community.
“But this village – Jago, experienced a low rate of cholera in the past. But some of my people that used to defecate in bush fell inside wells and some suffered snakebite. Now, we have toilets everywhere in the village. We are happy. I thank Governor Seyi Makinde, Oyo State Government, RUWASSA and UNICEF for making this happen in my community. I also thank my people for their support and cooperation in accepting and adopting the new lifestyle. Now, we have two public boreholes in the village, apart from the one that I dug by myself.
The reporter observed that everywhere in Jago was very neat, and there was no stench of faeces from any part during the tour of the village.
The reporter wondered that if this feat could be achieved in a village, what about communities in the urban centre of Ibadan that do not have toilet facilities and access to safe water?
He remembered his growing up years at Labiran, his family compound in Ibadan. He recalled how he used to trek with his uncles from Labiran to Beyerunka, and to Alarafa. He did not forget the makeshift plank bridge for pedestrians on Alafara River that connects Alafara community with Oja’gbo. Still fresh in his mind was how people would defecate on the river bank, dump wastes in the river, how pigs used to soak themselves in the dirty water in the river, as well as how an unbearable stench usually pervaded the area.
So, he decided to do a story on some urban communities that line the river banks in Ibadan, especially Alafara, Ogunpa, and Kudeti.
Visits to urban communities on river banks
READ THE FULL STORY IN THE SUN
