FOUR years after the European Union launched public toilets it constructed in 14 communities in Ekiti State to curb open defecation and improve access to safe water supply, many residents still prefer defecating in nearby bushes instead of using the toilets.     

They see public toilets as disgusting and unhygienic without a toilet in their homes.

Most people who defecate in the bush use leaves instead of water to clean their anus.

While a few dig the ground and cover their faeces with sand when they are done, others abandon the faeces for flies and domestic pets like dogs and pigs to feast on.

Apart from the bush being a host to dangerous pests and reptiles, including snakes and scorpions, open defecation is frowned upon by health experts, including the World Health Organization (WHO).

The United Nations defines open defecation as “when people defecate in the open – for example, in fields, forests, bushes, lakes and rivers – rather than using a toilet.”

The ICIR visited 14 communities with EU toilets in Ekiti State in the second week of November 2024 and discovered that only two of the communities use the toilets for the purpose they were built.   

Nine communities abandoned the facilities and three converted them for other purposes.

About the toilets

The EU funded the construction of the toilets between 2018 and 2020 under its Water Supply and Sanitation Reform Programme III and handed them over to the communities to manage.

Seven communities benefitted from the facilities each in Gbonyin and Ekiti West Local Government Areas (LGAs).

The communities are Ode, Egbe, Imesi, Agbado, Aisegba, Iluomoba, and Ijan in Gbonyin LGA and Aramoko, Erinjiyan, Ikogosi, Ido-Ile, Erio, Ipole-Iloro and Oke-Imesi in Ekiti West LGA.

They are in the southern and central senatorial districts of the state, respectively.

Each facility has two sections containing two flush toilets, urinals, a bathroom, and a washing tub.

It also has a solar-powered motorised borehole, a pumping machine, an overhead water tank, a car wash canopy that accommodates two cars, and outdoor water faucets providing water for the car wash and the public.

The frontage of each toilet is floored and each section of the facilities has a gate and key, preventing unauthorised access or abuse of use.

All the toilets are painted in the same colours – navy blue and yellow.

Upon their completion in 2020, the EU and Bread of Life Development Foundation, a Nigerian-based non-government organisation that handled the construction, in collaboration with the Ekiti State Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Programme, handed the projects dubbed: Farewell to Open Defecation” over to the communities.

The ICIR’s findings showed that the state government objected to the communities being fully in charge of the facilities, but the funder’s plan for the communities to manage the toilets sailed through.

Toilets were built because of poor sanitation, water supply in state

Before the toilets were built, Ekiti State had safe sanitation coverage of 32 per cent in rural and small towns and 38 per cent in urban towns. Open defecation was 68 per cent in the state – the highest in the South-West, according to the state Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene policy. These data were contained in a statement issued by Babatope Babalobi, the team lead of the Bread of Life Development Foundation, on behalf of the EU and the state government when work began on the project in 2018.

The statement said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2014 survey showed that 92 per cent of the communities in Gbonyin LGA were without public latrines, and in Ekiti West, 124 communities were found not to have any form of public latrines, quoting the Ekiti-West WASH Profile 2014 report.

As of the time the project was conceived, Ekiti State was among the 2.1 billion people globally who lacked access to safe water, and another 4.5 billion who lacked safely managed sanitation, according to the WHO.

The state’s children were also among the 361,000 under five years who died yearly due to diarrhoea occasioned by unsafe water.

The WHO links poor sanitation and contaminated water to transmission of diseases namely cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid.

As of September 2024, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) recorded 19 suspected cholera cases in Ekiti State.

Current state of EU toilets in Ekiti

Human faeces littered the toilet floors and surroundings in Imesi, Agbado, and Ipole-Iloro where they are abandoned by the communities.

This means that rather than the communities using them to prevent open defecation, the toilets are tools for promoting it.

The ICIR’s findings showed that each functional toilet has a manager. Users pay a token (approximately N50) to use the toilets, and the water is sold at a very cheap rate to attract users and keep the facility running. For instance, a 50-litre keg is sold for N50 in communities where the facilities are functional.

A part of the revenue generated goes to the community while the remainder is used to maintain the building and support the facility manager.

Many residents interviewed said they were more comfortable defecating in the bush which envelopes their towns than using a public toilet. They said using a public toilet was the last option because of safety concerns.  

Others said they preferred other amenities, including schools, hospitals, and empowerment centres to public toilets.

A striking issue with The ICIR’s finding is that people in communities where the toilets were abandoned declined to speak with the reporter. Some residents of those communities were also averse and resisted check on the facilities.

However, residents of communities where the toilets were functional were welcoming and glad about the donation.

Governor’s town, neighbouring community convert toilets to restaurants

In Ikogosi, the home of the state governor, Biodun Oyebanji, a woman uses the toilet as a restaurant. She keeps all her foodstuff, pots, and other utensils in a section of the toilet. She also built a wooden kitchen and cafe as annexes to the facility.

Her restaurant attracted about a dozen customers within 30 minutes spent by the reporter at the building as she dished out different meals, including beans, rice, bread, assorted meat, and drinks to her customers. She was supported by a female cook.

Ikogosi is a leading tourism community in the state. It is expected to set the pace in sanitation and maintain available infrastructures for that purpose.

In 2022, The ICIR reported how the hometown of the former Senate President and presidential aspirant on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 general election, Ahmad Lawan, stank because of poor sanitation.

The case of the toilet misapplication was the same in Erijiyan, a community before Ikogosi, where another woman, Aduyemi Modupe, runs a big restaurant in front of the toilet.

“I’ve been here for about two years. Since I came here, the water has not run. We have also been unable to use the toilet. The pipes had been damaged before I got here. None of the things installed in the building is working.

“I urge the government to help us. I have just repaired the pumping machine and I spent so much money to repair it. The canopy provided outside the premises has been blown away by the wind. I appeal to the government if it can turn the toilet for other uses. If the government also wants us to keep using the facility as a toilet, I plead that it helps us to repair it.”

The woman said nobody had used the toilet since she started running her business there. “Nobody even asks about it or shows interest in using it. Even if there is water and everything is working fine, nobody uses it.”

Similarly, in Erio community, the toilet is used as a barbing salon. At least two people work at the salon, which attracts a good number of customers daily.

The ICIR saw one of the toilet rooms used for taking a nap by users.

The facility manager, Tosin Bamigbade, said, “We only use the toilet once a year when a major pastor in the town organises a programme and many people come to his church. The church people are usually here for a week. That’s the only time we use it. Nobody asks about the toilet after that.

“We use a section of the toilet as a barbing salon so that the building will not just be there. We also use the other section for toilet.”

Aramoko, Ido-Ile communities use facilities

The ICIR observed that the toilets were partially used in two communities namely Aramoko and Ido-Ile.

In Aramoko, the facility manager is a retired director of environmental health, Olofintuyi Abiodun. He said, “Since I took over this place, I’ve been trying my best to maintain it because as a professional, I make sure the environment is tidy. One of the challenges we have is that people do not patronise this place. They will be saying they don’t have money.

“The people that handed it over to me said I should be collecting N50. Still, the people will say they don’t have money. Instead of patronising here, they enter the bush up there to do whatever they want to do.”

He said he made necessary repairs with the token he collected, adding that the facility never had any major problems.

He also said there had been an improvement in the number of houses with toilets in the community.

At Ido-Ile, one of the users, Ayeni Toyese told The ICIR, “This water is very useful to us in the town. We don’t have water in our street. This is the water that we drink, use for bathing, washing and cooking. We don’t want the facility to have any problem and we’re hoping that we will get another one like this to further support us.”

She said the water was always available.

Another user, Toyin Odewale, concurred with Toyese’s position. She appealed to the government and other well-meaning organisations to support the community with similar aid.

She said she had used the water for over four years, and it had always served her.

The manager, an elderly woman, Aduke Babatope, said many people come to fetch the water. She sells a big bowl for N20, three 25-litre kegs for N50, and a paint rubber for N10.

But she said people only use the toilet whenever there are events in the town and visitors come to the community. Bathing and excreting are both N50.

She’s managed the facility for three years. The woman said the water wasn’t selling well during the rainy season but would not be enough for those who need it during the dry season.

According to her, part of the money she generates goes to the community and she retains the remainder for herself and for the maintenance of the building.

Communities where toilets are partly in use  

Police officers use the toilet in Egbe community. It is built near the town’s market and police station. A section of the toilet was given to the police officers.

Two of the officers expressed delight with the toilet while speaking with The ICIR.

Ode community also claimed to be using the facility but the toilet seats were too dirty to make the claim valid.

Built close to the community’s market, the toilet is managed by Ifagbure Oluwasegun.

He claimed that up to 60 people use the toilet daily, but from the look of the facility, his claim is doubtful because the toilet seats and floors are too dirty. They appeared unused for months.

He said out of 100 houses, only about 30 have toilets in the town.

A food vendor near the toilet, Ebun Akinyemi, said the toilet would be useful to the community, especially market people, visitors and motorists if well managed. She was silent on whether the facility had been used recently.

Communities where toilets are fully abandoned

The toilets are completely abandoned in the following communities:  Imesi, Agbado, Aisegba, Ilu-Omoba, Ijan, Ipole-Iloro and Oke-Imesi.. The facility manager at Ilu-Omoba, Joseph Micheal, said the toilet stopped working in 2023 because the pumping machine got damaged.

It would cost N250,000 to repair the machine and the community had yet to provide the money, he said.

A resident, Omolere Olamilekan, said people who used the toilet before it became bad had resorted to using the bush, while potable water had been a huge challenge for people of the area.

The ICIR reports that toilets in Agbado, Imesi, Aisegba, Ijan, Ipole-Iloro and Oke-Imesi are left in the bush.

In Oke-Imesi, the building’s ceiling and roof are falling off. Its walls are cracking.

Ayo Jolayemi, who runs a private clinic at a storey building near the toilet said, “I came in here around April 2021 and I met this facility. What I was told was that the town’s authority from the Oba’s place had a committee looking after it. I met it bad, and put in my money to renovate it. I was maintaining the place. Later, there was a major damage through the borehole.

“I called the authorities to see what was happening there. They came, and since then they have not been coming. That was November last year. I called other people I knew, but nobody responded.”

He said the borehole was the major problem with the facility.

He also told the reporter that people in the community faced difficulty in getting safe water, as according to him, such a problem could be ameliorated if the toilet functioned and its water ran.

Ekiti government reacts

Reacting to the findings, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities in the state, Olumide Ajayi, said the EU’s concept of the projects was to hand them over to the communities, even though the state wasn’t happy with the decision, it allowed it to be.

Ajayi agreed with The ICIR’s findings on the state of the toilets, stressing that the state intended to appraise the use of the toilets after three years and make a comprehensive report to the EU.

The ICIR reports that the three years he claimed had since elapsed because the projects were launched in 2020.

“We are not unaware of what you found there. But we have to respect the position of the people that designed that concept, that we should review its operations after three years, and that the communities should maintain it within those years. The state should respect that because it was donated to us.

“It was not donated for us to manage but to the communities to manage.”

He said the toilets should not have been handed over to the communities that abandoned or misapplied them.

“We are going to make a comprehensive report of this situation and share with the EU and share with the proponent of that concept to EU because we argued then that it shouldn’t have been fully handed over to the communities. An agreement was signed between the EU’s representatives and the communities before the EU handed over the projects to them.

Similarly, a senior official in the ministry, who was part of the state’s team that executed the project, Jide Olatilu, an engineer, confirmed The ICIR’s findings.

He said he was at Ikogosi in October and met the woman who converted the toilet into a restaurant, and she insulted him when he challenged her.

“I can tell you some communities are not using the toilets. I think the major issue is the payment of the user fee. We said they should engage a vendor to operate and maintain the toilet facilities. They cannot use it without making a payment.

“We will not be tired. We will continue with our sensitisation until they know how to use the toilet and pay. How much? N20 or N50,” he stated.

EU, Bread of Life Foundation declines comments

The ICIR contacted the Bread of Life Development Foundation which executed the projects on its findings. Its leader, Babatope Babalobi, said he had nothing to say about the project.

He said his organisation no longer had anything to do with the toilets since it completed work on them, and they were delivered to the communities.

Similarly, the EU declined to comment on the toilets.

The ICIR sent a mail to the Nigerian office of the EU on November 15, 2024. The organisation failed to respond.

The EU’s head of communication in Nigeria, Modestu Chukwulaka, was also contacted. He requested details of the findings. They were sent to him by text message and email on November 20, 2024.

His efforts to get reactions to the findings from relevant departments in the EU yielded no fruits.

The ICIR further contacted the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency through email on December 28, 2024.

Responding to the email on January 10, 2025, the agency referred this organisation to the European Commission’s central services: https://european-union.europa.eu/contact-eu_en.

A request sent to the platform was not replied to despite being acknowledged.