Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday inaugurated the Steering Committee of the “Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign,” which he leads as chairma
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday inaugurated the Steering Committee of the “Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign,” which he leads as chairman, The Tribune is reporting.
Osinbajo said at the virtual inauguration of the ‘Use the toilet campaign’ committee that the Federal Government is hoping to expand access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities as one of Nigeria’s most effective weapons against infectious diseases
A statement issued by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, in Abuja quoted the Vice President as saying: “We are embarking upon this initiative at a most auspicious time. As our nation confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognise that expanding access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities is our most effective weapon against the scourge of infectious diseases.
“Ensuring the provision of adequate WASH facilities in our communities is the cornerstone of our efforts to strengthen the resilience of our public health structures beyond the present challenge of COVID-19. This is the basis of our commitment to ending open defecation and more broadly to raising the standards in the WASH sector.”
Speaking on the progress made since the adoption and implementation of the national road map for WASH in 2016, the Vice President said more LGAs across the country have been certified as Open Defecation Free according to the National Open Defecation Free (ODF) Protocol. Continuing, the Vice President noted that “the key objectives of this effort include the implementation of a campaign to end open defecation in Nigeria by 2025.
Speaking further on the importance of the campaign on sanitation and hygiene in Nigeria, Prof. Osinbajo said “it will create a pool of resource persons to support local actors to implement this nationwide transformational sanitation agenda.
“The campaign will mobilise various strata of the society to imbibe a new culture of safe sanitation through behavioural change communication and advocacy strategies; we will also establish mechanisms for tracking progress and sharing knowledge and lessons learnt.”
