User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Nigeria

Public toilets in Nigeria are few and far between. Those that do exist are in poor condition, and users do not feel obligated to clean them. Public toilets are lacking in schools and in health centers, which results in public defecation and creates a new set of problems.

Public toilets
Across Nigeria in 2016, there was a lack of public toilets. The public toilets that did exist were often in poor conditions. A cultural problem in 2016 was that even when public toilets did exist, people who used them did not feel obligated to keep them clean after they used them; they often believed it should be the job of someone else to clean the toilets after they used them. Maintenance of toilets in schools in 2016 was often very low. It encouraged people to openly defecate near the school, creating its own set of problems. Only a third of urban dwellers in Nigeria had had access to public toilets since 2000. It cost around USD$0.15-0.50 to use a public toilet in 2007. Most public accommodations do not offer toilets for use by the public, which further encourages a culture of open defecation.

The lack of sanitation in healthcare centers, and specifically in birthing centers, resulted in worse maternal, newborn and child deaths in the country in the 2000s and 2010s. 21% of healthcare centers in Bauchi, Benue, Enugu, Ekiti, Jigawa and Plateau in 2016 lacked toilet facilities. Only 20% had hand-washing facilities. None had sex segregated toilets, nor separate toilets for patients and staff. 27.6% of Primary Healthcare Centers in these six states had a motorized borehole as their only public toilet. Only 54.9% of delivery rooms had hand washing stations.

History
The first mobile public toilet project was created by Isaac Durojaiye in 1992. His goal was to provide better public toilet facilities around the country in places where they were lacking. At the time, Nigeria, a count which had around 135 million people, had only around 500 functional public toilets in the whole country. Durojaiye's company provided public toilet units and twice a week emptying service to those units. Units are also available for use is less permanent options are desired.

Starting in 2002, Durojaiye's company started using locally manufactured plastic toilets. Many units are rented to locals who would otherwise be unemployed. They pay the company a fixed fee, and then keep the rest of the earnings from charging users a small fee that is usually around USD$0.15 a use. By 2003, there were 1,500 toilets located at public accommodations and 120 that were public street level toilets. Most were located in Lagos. In 2007, the average monthly cost to advertise on the side of one of these public toilets was around 350 Birr.

Open defecation and sanitation access
Between 2000 and 2015, an additional 31.5 million people in urban areas of Nigeria experienced life in areas without functional sanitation. In 2016, 58 million people  in Nigeria lacked access to basic sanitation. Open defecation was a problem in Nigeria, leading to health problems among the population. Open defecation in the late 2010s put girls and women at increased risk of sexual violence, especially when they defecated in the open at night. In 2016, WaterAid ranked Nigeria the third worst country in the world and the worst country in sub-Saharan Africa for having the most urban-dwellers living without access to a safe, private toilet. That same year, WaterAid ranked Nigeria the third worst country in the world for having the most urban-dwellers engaging in open defecation. WaterAid also ranked Nigeria the worst country in the world for creating a plan to increase access for urban populations to functional sanitation. 13.5 million people living in urban areas practiced open defecation. People would pee and poop into plastic bags, which the they colloquially referred to as flying toilets. They also defecated on roadsides and railway tracks. In 2019, only 14 of Nigeria's 774 LGA were certified as being open defecation free. In 2019, Nigeria lost 1.9% of their GDP as a result of poor sanitation nationwide. This amounted to N455 Billion annually.

Bayelsa State
Along the Amassoma River in Bayelsa State, there was a floating public toilet.

Benue State
In 2016, residents of Makurdi had inadequate toilet facilities. There were two primary issues. The first was there were not enough public toilets. The second was that the ones they had were in poor condition. Open defecation in the urban areas of Makurdi was an issue in 2016, with people indiscriminately relieving themselves on the streets. In places like Makurdi in more working class areas, housing compounds sometimes had shared public toilets and bathing facilities among several different households. While some toilets may have been flush, the water pressure was often minimal. There often could be lines during certain times of the day. The public toilet located inside the Wurukum Market in Makurdi in 2016 was often not very clean, and people had to pay to use it. As a result, people often engaged in open defecation outside the market.

Kano State
Public toilets in Kano, located near the market, were built and maintained by the municipal government in the 1950s. The total number was too small for the community they served and they were often dirty. By the 1960s, traders in the market had been given permission to take over the market toilets and run them on a for profit basis. This was further encouraged across the city in 1981 when the  Kano Urban Development Board (KUDB) actively encouraged the creation of for profit toilets because the local government lacked the resources to build and maintain their own public toilets. In some cases, KUDB thought that it was critical to have public toilets in specific locations and were unable to find groups willing to construct and maintain toilets. When that happened, KUDB ran the project, and then leased out the facilities or extended credit to people who would run them. Businesses who ran built and for profit toilets then paid the government a fee of $8 a year. Those who were given grants or leases paid the government an annual allocation fee of USD$250 and then paid a yearly rent of USD$10. It was important to have public toilet facilities in the city because of a large Muslim population who needed to engage in daily ablutions and where their faith required privacy when defecating and urinating. Most public toilets were found in markets, bus stations and car parks. Some are stand alone units in areas with high population density. In places where there is no sewage connection, private operators often drilled bore holes and then added the sale of water to their business. The typical unit had 16 compartments, which contained five toilets and three bathrooms for men and seven toilets and one bathroom for women. Each bathroom unit had a shower, a water tap and a squat flush toilet.

Lagos State
There are a few public toilets in the Lagos State. Their condition tends to be very poor, and they do not have facilities to change baby diapers.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Nigeria
Around 2.5 billion people around the world in 2018 did not have access to adequate toilet facilities. Around 4.5 billion people lacked access to proper sanitation. Public toilet access around the world is most acute in the Global South, with around 3.6 billion people, 40% of the world's total population, lacking access to any toilet facilities. 2.3 people in the the Global South do not have toilet facilities in their residence. Despite the fact that the United Nation made a declaration in 2010 that clean water and sanitation is a human right, little has been done in many places towards addressing this on a wider level.

In developing countries, unisex public toilets have been a disaster because they make women feel unsafe and fail to consider local religious beliefs. Across Africa, open defecation had social consequences. These included loss of dignity and privacy. It also put women at risk of sexual violence.

An issue in developing countries is toilet access in schools. Only 46% of schools in developing countries have them. Many schools around the world in 2018 did not have toilets, with the problem particularly acute in parts of Africa and Asia. Only one in five primary schools on earth had a toilet and only one in eight secondary schools had public toilets. 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa did not have a toilet in their home in 2018. The lack of toilet access put these children at risk of water borne diseases.

There are generally two toilet styles in public bathrooms in Africa. One is a traditional squat toilet. The other is a western style toilet with bowl and a place to sit. Flush toilets are often only found in affluent areas of developing countries.