32 million Nigerians openly Defecate.

The World Bank has said that 32 million Nigerians have no means of defecation and as such pass faeces in the open. The report, titled, “Economic impacts of poor sanitation in Africa,” covered some other African countries too.

The desk study, Economic Impacts of Poor Sanitation in Africa, found the majority of these costs to production come from annual premature deaths, including children under the age of five, due to diarrheal disease. Nearly 90% of these deaths are directly attributable to poor water, sanitation, and hygiene. Other significant costs were productivity losses from poor sanitation, and time lost through the practice of open defecation.

Poor sanitation costs Nigeria 455 billion Naira each year, equivalent to US$3 billion. It also said 70 million Nigerians use unsanitary or shared latrines. The poorest quintile is 10 times more likely to practice open defection than the richest.

Open defecation costs Nigeria US$1 billion per year – yet eliminating the practice would require less than 6.5 million latrines to be built and used. The World Bank warned that “open defecation not only has higher costs than any other sanitation
practise, it has considerable adverse social impacts. Low cost and effective ways of stopping open defecation need to be scaled up.