By: Monday Danladi, Bauchi
Bauchi State Government is to spend the sum of N200m through the State Environmental Protection Agency in construction of not fewer than Thirty – five climate resilient user friendly toilets across the state.
The aim is to support the declaration of some LGAs in the state as open defecation free (ODF) as well as ensure that other LGAs attained the status in not a distant future to promote healthy living.
The disclosure was made on Friday by the Director General of BASEPA, Dr Mahmud Mohammed Bose while speaking with a team of Journalists supported by the UNICEF Bauchi Field office who were in his office to access the impact of the ODF status in the LGA.
According to him, “There are many offices that do not have toilets, thereby making issues of convenient difficult for the staff particularly, women. This is a very serious issue that we take it, you know, very serious in the agency. In fact, as part of our margin for this 2025, we have a provision of about N200 million, which is budgeted for this issue of public toilets construction.”
“And not ordinary toilet, they will be well equipped with sanitary and water supply for our women in order to make it easy for them particularly during their menstrual period. They are going to be user friendly and accommodating public challenge which we have a model in the state,” he added.
He stressed that,”The issue of menstrual,hygiene, you know, the dignity and safety of a woman, you know, our children. So is a byfitting model that is going to make it all encompassing including people with disabilities” .
The Director General of the Agency, said that the journey of Bauchi local government becoming ODF was a successful one in which the agency is a key stakeholders in the entire process.
“So it’s a successful journey, which BASEPA is part of the journey. We have some of our Staff who are currently working with the stakeholders in terms of mobilization, in terms of community Sanitation. And so many issues In regards to attaining, the ODF of the local government area. So BASEPA has been a key stakeholders in the journey and also, as part of the effort of the agency, you know, we have been working on this management of the development,” he added.
He stressed that as part of the efforts of the Agency as a regulating agency in the issue of faecal sludge management, “which we have other stakeholders for all the key activists in this area of faecal sludge management, where we identify, what is manual and mechanised operations FSM.”
According to him, “In this case, we have formed union for them. Now they have an umbrella, we registered them with the agency, we had series of capacity building for them together with RUWASA and other partners, which built their capacity and invest in the Management practises. On this issue of the customer management beyond capacity building.”
The BASEPA DG added that,”We also tried to come up with faecal sludge large management outlets, which is the first of it kind in the whole country. But come up with the guideline, which was part of UNICEF support. After having the guidelines, the UNICEF through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, employ international Consultants so that at least we can think of how to implement the document.”
“And, I’m glad to inform you that, now, in Bauchi State, we have launched the management implementation strategy, which is climate resilient, you know, which has taken care of all the Climatic breaks that we are having in the state in terms of flooding, in terms of windstorm. So, now, we are not just talking about the initially having difficult implementation strategy. It’s also climate resilience, the whole world now is talking about the show of climate resilient watch, which is part of the sustainability aspect by putting in place to see that,” he added.
Mahmud Bose added that, “We have controlled the issue of what we have for sustainability in this state. So, we are doing all what we can from the agency to see that all our stakeholders are conversant with the document that we have which ultimately it will help in achievement of the issue of safely managed sanitation that now we are talking about.”
According to him,”So we are putting all mechanism in place to see that Sustainability of attaining this odf is well achieved. Also, as part of the effort, we are working with Ready to Use centred friendly toilet, which was commissioned last last few week. The user centred friendly Toilet also is a sustainability mechanism for ODF which we are planning to have all these toilet facilities in most of our public places and markets.”
“You know, we are working closely with private sector to see how we can have all investment in those aspects so that it should be private sector driven, people truly based their money in this aspect. So that, at least we can reduce the burden on the government for attaining ODF.”
According to him, to achieve an open defecation free status in the state, the Bauchi State Government in collaboration with stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector of the state adopted the Climate Resilient Faecal Sludge implementation strategy document, covering from 2025 to 2030.
He also said that with the support from UNICEF and other development partners, stakeholders validated the findings contained in the document that served as an operational guidelines for all service providers and other stakeholders within the Faecal Sludge management value chain in the state.
According to him, “The adoption of the guidelines facilitated the attainment and maintenance of the ODF status.I am happy that today in Bauchi State, we have a Fecal Sludge Management (FSM) Implementation strategy which is Climate Resilient.This is part of the sustainability strategy we are putting in place to see that we control the issue of Open defecation”
“We also worked with WaterAid Nigeria under their impact Accelerator project.We already have a user centered friendly toilet which was commissioned last week in the state.This is also a Sustainability mechanism for ODF and we have planning to have this kind of toilet facility in public places such as market areas and motor parks” he said
Also speaking, the Bauchi Local government Chairman of Toilet Business Owners, Ibrahim Kabo Umar stated that in the past, open defecation was problem in the state because many people were not into the operation of toilets as business, adding that the increase in toilet businesses in the local government contributed greatly to achievement of open defecation free status.
“We, as Toilet Business Owners contributed greatly to Bauchi local government in becoming ODF because in public places such as motor parks and market areas, we have toilets under public private partnership. Again, we ensure that we collect the feaces whenever the toilet is full and make money out of it.So, we are also profiting from the feaces”
To discourage open defecation, we as Toilet Business Owners ensure that girls, women and persons with disabilities do not pay to use toilet, we even allow some men who are pressed and don’t have money to use the toilets.Also, BASEPA has integrated Toilet Business Owners into the Faecal Sludge implementation strategy and giving us support in all our activities” he said.
