Rep. Sada Jibi, The Chairman, House Committee on Water Resources, has stressed the need for Nigerians to change their attitude to effectively address the issue of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).
Jibi made the call when members of the Society For Water and Sanitation (NEWSAN) visited him in Abuja on Thursday.
According to him, corruption had eaten deep into the system, whereby contractors short-changed the system and failed to provide WASH facilities.
“No government will give out contract for the construction of schools without component of toilets; the problem is that they short-change the government and the system.
“When you give someone contract to build a secondary school of 10 classrooms, how can it have one toilet? No architect will design such.
“We had hand sanitisers in offices when Ebola struck us but now you only find empty containers in some of these MDAs because we were not able to sustain it and money has been budgeted for them.
“The problem has to do with us; there is no way you can write a law and say ‘enter this toilet and wash your hand before you come out’.
“It is a normal thing for you to wash your hands after using the toilet.
“It has to do with everyone, there has to be serious advocacy on the need to change our behaviour towards sanitation and water, particularly sanitation, it is a behavioural thing,” he said.
Jibi noted that there were challenges with open defecation but steps were being taken to address it.
The chairman, however, said the challenge was that to achieve sanitation, safe and clean water must be achieved first.
He said the committee was trying to encourage members of the House to sink boreholes in schools in their constituencies.
Jibi pointed out that there were plans to reintroduce the national water resources bill, adding that more advocacy and awareness would be created on the bill.
He encouraged the society to take its advocacy beyond the parliament to the local communities and rural areas for greater impact
Jibi assured the society that the whole parliament and the committee would be there to support its activities because it was part of its oversight functions.
“If we get 50 members that pay attention to your advocacy that means 50 local governments, which is a good step towards addressing the issue,” he said.
Mr Attah Benson, National Co-ordinator, NEWSAN, earlier said the purpose of the visit was to intimate the committee of the evil and
implications of poor WASH service delivery to the country, its citizens and general development as a whole.
Benson said that statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources showed that 57 million people in Nigeria lacked access to safe water,
while 130 million people use unimproved sanitation, and 47million practice open defecation.
He said the society was advocating and soliciting the support of the committee for increased and sustainable budgetary provision for the WASH sector in the country.
“Ensure WASH budget lines that consistently increase annually to reach a minimum of 0.5per cent of GDP by 2020 and beyond.”
He also called on the committee to ensure that bilateral agreements entered into with development partners were honoured and ensure MDAs provide and release funding for WASH services.
Benson also called on the committee to establish appropriate laws to ensure availability of WASH facilities in all public institutions and places, while there should also be provision of menstrual hygiene friendly toilets for girls in schools.
” We also call on the committee to support the acceleration of the implementation of ODF Roadmap and provide appropriate laws and policies for private sector intervention in the WASH sector .
“Members of the committee can speak to their colleagues in the House on the importance of WASH and they will advocate to their State Governors to give priority attention to WASH in each of their States.
“This will help to accelerate the achievement of the SDG targets on WASH and enhance the eradication of open defecation by 2025 and facilitate the achievement of Universal Access to Safely Managed WASH by 2030.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NEWSAN is a coordinating network of over 300 CSOs, NGOs and Community Based Organisations in WASH spread across the six geopolitical zones.
It has a mandate to ensure access to safe and clean water, sanitation and hygiene services for all Nigerians.
