The Water and Sanitation Media Network, a coalition of Journalists reporting water and sanitation issues in Nigeria has expressed its concern over the high rate of infant mortality resulting from water-related infections in the country.

The group lamented that over 868,000 Nigerian children die each year, about a quarter of which are from water related and vaccine preventable diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, meningitis and measles.

The coalition also said there are clear indications that Nigeria may not achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) water target before 2046 and that of sanitation by 2076, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report.

The group in a statement released to mark the World Water Day, March 22, noted that access to improved water and sanitation still remains a major challenge in Nigeria, adding that  the Federal Government has failed to fulfill none of the twenty six commitments it made at the high level meetings.

“Nigeria has not fully achieved any of the twenty six WASH commitments, it voluntarily made in several high level meetings between 2000 and 2012. These commitments made at four high level meetings between 2000-2012: the World summit in Johannesburg 2000, United Nations Assembly, New York in 2010, African Sanitation and Hygiene conference, eThekwini in 2011, and the Sanitation and Water for All meeting in Washington, in 2012; but none of them have been fulfilled so far by the Nigerian Government”,  the statement added.

The group further disclosed that some of these unfulfilled commitments include; harmonisaiton of water and sanitation policies, promoting WASH in Schools, intensify increasing water and sanitation budgets by 15 per cent, ensuring at least 0.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to promoting sanitation and hygiene.

Others, according to them are; declaring access to water and sanitation a human right, encouraging State and Local Governments to  create budget lines for sanitation, scaling up community led total sanitation in the 36 states,  increasing national access to improved sanitation to 65 percent by 2015 and increasing national  access to improved water by at least 5 percent  by 2014.

“This explains why 35 million Nigerians still defecate in the open, about 90 million are without access to safe drinking water, and 130,000 under five Nigerian children die annually from preventable water borne disease”, the statement further explained.

The coalition therefore called on the Federal Government to accelerate access to safe drinking water and sanitation services in Nigeria by fulfilling the commitments it made at high level meetings to leverage additional financing to develop Nigeria’s water and sanitation sector.

The group urged the government to keep its promises and initiate practical policies, programmes and projects to develop the country’s WASH sector, and improve access to WASH services.