by Rachel Ogbu

Last year, the United Nations ranked Nigeria among top five countries in the world with the largest number of people defecating in the open. It says over 100 million Nigerians have no access to improved sanitation facilities such as latrines and toilets, while about 33 million Nigerians defecate openly because there are no sanitation facilities in public places.

On Monday January 29, the Lagos State Government swung into action announcing that it had adopted a model, Community Led Total Sanitation, to discourage and ultimately eradicate indiscriminate defecation in open places by some residents of the state.

According to the government, the CLTS, strives to wipe out open defecation by promoting the construction of household latrines.

Commissioner for Rural Development, Cornelius Ojelabi, explained during a six-day Train the Trainers’ Workshop on CLTS at Lekki that the CLTS approach has worked globally for scaling up sanitation and a pilot scheme tested in Nigeria already proves it will work in scaling up sanitation with contributions of all stakeholders.

He said the government was adopting the model in Lagos to promote healthy living, adding that the government was ready to provide sanitation facilities in public places.

“The adoption of this model is sequel to the global and national successes recorded by the approach and our quest for excellence. This project will help to improve sanitary condition of communities.

“Lagos aims to be one of the top 10 mega cities in the world in terms of living indices. To achieve this noble desire, there is a need to intensify efforts to scale up sanitation,” Ojelabi said.

He said the government, in collaboration with the UNICEF, under the FG/UNICEF country programme was organising the training to introduce CLTS to stakeholders and to begin its implementation in Lagos.