The National President of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN), Engineer Elizabeth Eterigho, in this exclusive interview with ASHENEWS’ Tina George, raises concerns over the status of water scarcity and the prevalence of open defecation in Niger state. She also looks into its impact on the female gender, while proffering solutions on how these could be addressed. Excerpts:
How would you rate Niger state status regarding access to water and open defecation?
As far as Niger state is concerned, water is an issue and a serious one at that. Just before the dissolution of the board, I was a member of the Niger state Water and Sewage Corporation, I was on the Board of Directors and we have tried, as much as possible, to provide water because water is life and we try to make sure that people get water.
However, we got some percentage of success but there are a lot of areas that still do not have potable water. Areas in Kontagora, Bida, and Minna. Like in Minna, there are few houses you can go to and you put on the tap and get water flowing and only those living around the treatment area or Chachanga area. For people living far away from Chachanga, it is difficult to get water. For example, I stayed in the Bosso area and it got to a point where I didn’t get water flowing from my tap for six years but when we took over as Board members and we started doing gradual testing, for the first month, the water that was coming from the tap was brown because the whole pipe had been rusted.
Again, in Niger state, as far as policy on water is concerned, I don’t know of any and if there are, to me, they are not effective. Because if they effective, we will not find ourselves where we are today, the government will have seen that as a priority to invest in water and sanitation. If there is a policy, everybody will follow the policy. But when there is no policy, everyone just comes and does what they want and what they think is right.
Eterigho
You know that when there is no water, you can’t have a good defecation system. There is no water so people don’t go to the toilet and get water to use. Virtually in most areas, there is the practice of open defecation, even in the metropolis. So in some houses where you have them, you will see that their toilets are leaking outside, and no soakaways or septic tanks. So as far as assess to water and open defecation is concerned in Niger state, I think we have not started, thank God for the previous board that put in place some level of water accessibility to the populace but after that, we are yet to see anything that is happening.
But for open defecation, it is very common and everywhere in Niger state. In the market, you see everyone going to where they dump refuse and defecate. So, open defecation is very common in Niger state.
What do you see as responsible for this. Is the lack of budgetary release also impacting on the non-accessibility of water across the state?
If there is a budget, it is supposed to be released, if it is not released, how can you talk about implementation? You have made a budget, the budget is meant for consumption, and it should be released. The money is to be released for funding projects. If you make a budget for example, the budget is just paper, you need to implement the budget by releasing the money so if the money is not released or the budgetary allocation that is done is not released, how do you expect the Ministry of Water and its agencies to perform their function.
The government is a stakeholder when it comes to providing water for the populace. If there is a budget and the government does not release the money, there is no magic anyone can do, you can only be saying that you have so so and so money that has been budgeted for either water or sanitation or WASH as a whole but it is just paper and no actuals if there is no cash flow or no release, which amounts to nothing. I think it is also a problem because if you have good plans but you are not financing the plan, then it is as good as no plan at all.
How has access to water and open defecation affected the overall health and well-being of communities in the state?
If there is no water, the environment will be dirty and it becomes a habitable place for all manner of insects or diseases. Due to the unavailability of water, people go outside to defecate, some people defecate in bowls, and plates and they pour it in the drainage or around their surroundings. You will find out that in some houses, even within Minna metropolis, the water from the toilet comes out to the drainage. So of course, it is expected that people will be sick. Dirty environments are carriers of illnesses and infection and it spreads to all manner of diseases.
First of all, you breathe in a very dirty environment, so you are infecting your lungs and you are not taking in clean fresh air, so you are affected. Children play around these dirty environments and some flies are carriers of these diseases and you find children around this place with their hands taking one or two things on the ground and not washing their hands and they eat food with these same hands without washing.
A healthy environment is a healthy life. If the environment is not healthy and you don’t have water, it leads to a lot of health issues. A healthy environment leads to a healthy life. But if you don’t have water to wash your body, to clean your house, to wash even your plates, then how do you do your cooking? How do you take care of your household? so it affects individuals and the community 100 percent in terms of their health and well-being in Niger State.
Do you see cultural or social factors that contribute to the lack of access to water and the prevalence of open defecation in the tate?
To some level, culture affects. You see a lot of buildings we have in Niger state, especially those in the rural areas, where there is no laid out pipe borne water and some houses were built right on it. It is often difficult to go there to make connections because you can’t get into some of these houses because in most parts of the north, as a man, you don’t go to houses where women stay without permission. There must be a man in the house before you can enter inside and sadly, in the profession, there is rarely a female plumber, in fact, there are none in Niger state and this is due to the culture of the land.
So what NIWASEC has been doing in such areas is to have a central point where these people can go and fetch water. It is like a borehole but it is a pipe coming from the water treatment plant which passes there and they raise it so that the people can fetch the water.
So culture also has an effect to some level on it as most of these houses do not have water and without permission, it is impossible for someone to have access into the house to lay pipes or reticulate the house.
For open defecation, most open defecation is done by men, it is not that females don’t do it, they do it at night but a male can do it at any time. You can’t cheat nature and because we don’t have toilets and latrines in public places, it causes them to do it anywhere.
What are the potential environmental impacts of inadequate access to water and open defecation?
I am a member of APWEN OPS WASH and as the President of APWEN, we have an MOU with OPS WASH Nigeria and we are a focal point for them to be able to implement advocacies. We want to do these advocacies for them. One thing about open defecation is that people are not aware of the impact of open defecation on their environment. They need the awareness, the advocacy, and the sensitization.
Open defecation has a lot of environmental impact. If there is no water for cleaning, everywhere becomes very dirty. If the environment is not clean, you don’t expect to get anything from the environment. It has high potential environmental impact,
Are there any existing policies or regulations in place to address the issues of water access and open defecation? If so, how effective are they?
You want to know if there are existing policies or regulations in place to address the issue of water assessment and open defecation, as a member of the Board of NIWASEC, I was a member before the new dissolution of this board, we’ve been asking for the formulation of a policy in the water sector.
There is a specific policy worldwide that the government is supposed to provide certain liters of water for every home daily but I am not aware if there is any other policy.
Again, in Niger state, as far as policy on water is concerned, I don’t know of any and if there are, to me, they are not effective. Because if they effective, we will not find ourselves where we are today, the government will have seen that as a priority to invest in water and sanitation. If there is a policy, everybody will follow the policy. But when there is no policy, everyone just comes and does what they want and what they think is right.
So I don’t think there is any policy or maybe there is but to the best of my knowledge, I will say, I am not aware of any.
Are there any specific vulnerable groups in the community that are disproportionately affected by the lack of water access and the prevalence of open defecation?
Yes, there are. These rural communities that do not have water are also vulnerable groups. There are a lot of these areas in Niger state. Go to Bida, Kontagora, Kuta and so on. It is surprising that as big as Bida is, they don’t have pipe-borne water. So what what are we saying? They are vulnerable.
Women are the most vulnerable of them all because there is no time you won’t see women with basins on their heads alongside their children going around to look for water. So water is lacking in Niger state and we must look at it and solve this problem.
How does the lack of access to water and the prevalence of open defecation impact the education and economic opportunities of the people of Niger state?
Some children want to go to school, but they don’t have water to have their bath in the morning. Most often, they have to wake up and go and look for water to do house chores, and by the time they are through, they discover that they are late to go to school. Several of them get discouraged and will not go to school while others will leave their houses due to threats of parents to beat them but will not still go to school and when they see schools closing, they return home. It is affecting the education of the young ones or those in school, they need to put in extra time to cover up for that time that was lagging behind.
For the workers, I want to take a typical example of a woman who does business with a grinding machine. She feeds her family from that business and she doesn’t have access to water. What will she use to grind? What will she use to wash the machine? So it is affecting the economy. It affects the woman’s business. It also affects the economy of the state in the long run.
Then, we moved from that typical woman who has a small grinding machine for pepper in her house to industries where you use water. If you use water and you are into processing, for example, in bakeries; there are bakeries are in Minna and Niger state generally. You discover that if you don’t have water, you cannot make your dough. You need water to mix your dough for the bread. So, if such a bakery does not have water to make its dough, it won’t make bread and they won’t be able to pay their taxes, which is going to affect the economy of this country.
Take somebody who does business on the road, let’s say he has a garden, he sells flowers which you can use for house and interior decorations but he doesn’t have water to wet the flower for it to be attractive, nobody will go near the flower and he won’t make sales. So on the long road, the economy of the country or state is affected if there is no water. In the long run, water affects everything.
Are there successful case studies or best practices from some areas that the people in the state can apply to improve access to water and reduce open defecation in the local context?
Yes. Some local government areas were declared open defecation-free, but I want to tell you that if you go now to those places, there isn’t anything like open defecation-free, because the advocacy is not there.
But we have some that are still successful. We have one now in Kano. I am aware that we also have some in Abuja. For governments and organizations, when designing public toilets, it should be designed properly, It should be designed in a way that it would have a biodigester that will digest the waste, and from the waste, biofertilizer can be generated.
Last two months, I was in Lagos, where I attended a program by the Lagos State Water Cooperation regulatory body. I was one of the panelists, they invited speakers from all over the country. I discovered that as small as Ghana is, they’re doing this effectively, and it is yielding results and also Kenya as well. These countries presented their projects and they had pictures they showed. They even had an app where if you want to evacuate your soakaway, you just go into that app which is just as you use an app to call Bolt, you use your app to call them and they come to you to evacuate it. And they don’t just evacuate, they take it to the next session where there are people that are buying from them, and they are turning it into biofertilizer.
There are successful cases, I think Niger state just has to look outside and think outside the box in its strategies of thinking of solving this problem. In Niger state, we can build public toilets in different places because we have land so we can build them in strategic places. We can ask for partnership from the private sector. That’s why OPS WASH is there, it gives room for the private sector to come in and invest in these public toilets.
The people would be charged for using these toilets and the charges would be used to maintain the toilet and keep it clean. Niger state can have collaboration with private organizations and give it a try. For example, APWEN is on the ground to help the states if they are ready, we are here to give a very good design of a biodigester, a toilet biodigester that if you have it in a place where it is populated, people use it. Like a place like Mobil will be a good place to start especially as open defecation is rampant in that area. Niger State needs to emulate those states that have done this. States like Lagos and Enugu states. Having public toilets will go a long way to solving open defecation.
What are the potential long-term solutions to improve access to water and eliminate open defecation in Niger state?
The government must consciously and deliberately take it as its own project. The government needs to collaborate with APWEN, collaborate with private organizations, and other stakeholders. Everyone just has to answer the call of nature, you just have to. So the government can provide public toilets where people can use them as a token. If it is clean, people will use it and it is also up to the government to make provision for water to be available for these toilets.
I thank God for the new government that we have and I want to plead that they should please face the issue of water supply. We need water because you cannot but do without water. You could have water that is not drinkable or not potable but the people need potable water. If the government provides potable water for the people, there will be fewer people in the hospital. Because pipe borne water diseases and illnesses lead people to death and the best way of arresting this in the life of people is to make sure that the best potable water to drink is made available.
So, let me say that the long-term effect is planning and execution and policy. For example, there are some areas in Niger State where houses are just being built, do we have laid down pipe-borne water? Do we have a pipe on the water inlet down to that area to those local areas before they start building houses? So I think the state should show concern by making sure NIWASEC ensures that every area is covered with pipes so that when the water is to flow, it will be able to designate this area and let the people know that So by the time water gets to the area, every house is bound to have water because they will tap their water from the main pipe that has been laid. But if you didn’t lay pipes down before the people built their houses, it would be unfair to come one day and declare that you want to demolish it.
I think in the long term, the government needs to be proactive. The government needs to plan how they solve the present problem that people have built where there is no pipe. There is a need to see how to provide pipes to such places. Having to lay out pipes after a place has been congested is very hectic. Therefore, in these virgin areas, the government should ensure that the pipes are laid down before people start building houses because a stitch in time saves nine.
There is a need for advocacy to effectively end open defecation. I want to tell the Niger state government and the federal government that the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria can do this for you. We have members in all the states and they can do the advocacies in local languages.
Are there cultural or behavioral change initiatives that have been implemented to address the issues of water access and open defecation? If so, what are the results?
I am not aware of any cultural or behavioral change initiative. I am not aware of it. Because I just spoke about NIWASEC, what we did in NIWASEC was to make sure they go on air and talk about how the people can handle the water issue, how to make sure that the people pay their water bills which is that for areas that have been metered. These metered areas were taken as case studies so that the Agency could see how to meter other areas. So I think that to me, that’s the only thing I know. I think this was the only organization that I’m aware of that is trying to change the culture and the particular behavior, change of the people towards the water issue.
And then open defecation, I would like to tell you something here, Like the full meaning of the Niger State Water and Sewage Corporation, it is just focusing on the aspect of water, till now, it is yet to look into that aspect of sewage because the aspect of water is very enormous to address. There is a need to put on the map the need for the collection of waste. The waste from every home can be taken for treatment at a central place where it can be digested and used to make money. Nations make money from waste, they create wealth from waste.
How do water-related challenges and open defecation impact gender equality and the empowerment of women in the community?
The female uses water most in the household and it is the female who goes out to look for the water most, even working-class ladies stay at work and think of how to get water and how to do things with water. While at work, she thinks about how to get water to take care of her family but if the water is there, she will be more empowered to remain at work, concentrate, and do more work.
The girl who needs to go to school usually has no water to have her bath, so her education is affected, that is how lack of water affects the female gender. In most cases, the boys will go while the girls will go and fetch water for the whole house. The girl is left behind and that gives room for gender disparity.
There are girls who are menstruating but have no water for them to clean themselves, menstruation may not give you that kind of notice as several girls do not know when it will come, they could have little cramps here and there and they get to school and this thing will just start and there is no water in the school for her to clean up before she uses the sanitary pad, due to this, some girls avoid school while they are menstruating for the whole week. However, when there is water, she knows that when she is in school, she can clean up and because there is no water, you will see some of them using tissues instead of using sanitary pads. so this unavailability of water affects the female gender very well. It is a big challenge and that is why we are advocating for water to be available.
Open defecation is not encouraged with the girls because of the way a lady is but you see that they don’t have a choice and sometimes when they need to answer the call to nature they go to the refuse place which is close to their residence and defecate. And there is also another thing that we do not have a designated place where refuse is being dumped in the state. If you want to empower a woman, please make sure there is water available as water makes her more effective, more efficient, and more productive because the part of her life she would have given looking for water, she will invest it in being productive and in her education, as a student or as a woman in the house, she will be able to work on time and make the food available on time.
Water unavailability affects the empowerment of women so everything is interwoven. We need to continuously train females in these crafts work that involve technical aspects, we need cases where we can have female plumbers, and female engineers being employed in the water sector that can go into restricted areas where the men cannot go because of cultural issues and we want water to be provided so that women can be productive, the women are being disenfranchised from doing what they are supposed to be doing because they have to go about looking for water to meet the need of the family.
