FG Flags Off Clean Nigeria Campaign In Rivers …Vows To End Open Defecation By 2025

The Federal Government has flagged off the clean Nigeria use the toilet campaign/youth empowerment programme in Rivers State.
National Coordinator of the programme, Mrs Opara Chizoba, who performed the ceremony in Port Harcourt said the campaign was aimed at mobilising Nigerians towards ending open defecation by 2025.
“The campaign is geared towards ending open defecation in Nigeria by 2025.
“We have about 46 million Nigerians still defecating in the open. Our number by population has almost number one among countries that defecate in the open” she said.
Chizoba said if india can mobilise over 550 million people to stop defecating in the open, Nigeria can do it by mobilising her 46 million away from open defecation.
“If the likes of India had actually been able to move 550 million people and its entire rural areas away from open defecation Nigeria can also do it”.
Chizoba also described the campaign as behavioural and transformational and regretted that the exercise was coming to Rivers State at a time when some states in the country had gone far, as far as ending open defecation was concerned.
She also said that one hundred youths will be recruited per local government area for the programme.
Also speaking the General Manager of the Rivers State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Mr Napoleon Adah, described the flag-off as historic, adding that the state is prepared for every challenge that will be encountered in the implementation process.
Adah said that Opobo/Nkoro and Akuku-Toru Local Government Areas were almost open defecation free, but for the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic last year.
He also said a technique to ensure that local government areas of the state were open defecation free has been developed.
Also speaking the Executive Director of Lifespan Development Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, Dr Chukwuma Ovy, said the group will work with focal persons in the 23 local government areas to ensure the success of the programme.
Ovy also charged them to mobilise people in the various communities for the programme.
It would be recalled that the Federal Executive Council had on the 8th of May, 2019 endorsed the clean Nigeria: use the toilet campaign.
President Muhammadu Buhari also signed on executive order 009, mandating the country to end open defecation by 2025.