How Yammawar Fulani Community in Kano state imposed fine for defecating in the open

In this report, BIODUN FOLARIN writes on why monetary fine imposed for defecating in the open at Yammawar Fulani Community in Dambattar Local Government Area of Kano State should be replicated by other communities to deter people from open defecation.
Yammawar Fulani community, a UNICEF certified Open Defecation Free (ODF), is a community of about 1620 population. The community formally practicing Open Defecation became an ODF certified when it began the process of imposing monetary fine of N3000 for adult and N2000 for children caught defecating in the open .
Residences in the community now prefer to build latrine toilet instead of paying fine. During a field trip on Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet organized by UNICEF in support of the European Union (EU) and UKaid; a member of the community; Mr. Saidu Garuba spoke on some of the benefits and experience after ODF certification.
He said, “After ODF we have noticed there is reduction of recurrent diseases like cholera, dysentery, diarrhoea. During OD our children fell sick all the time, they played with defecation and they fell sick, but now there is reduction in such diseases.
“When the program was introduced, they involved the village heads and ward heads. They invited the entire household and sensitized us on the dangers associated with OD.
“They provided toilet, and now they call all household for meeting regularly, warning us to inform our family to make sure no child his allowed to come out and defecate. Anyone caught practicing OD will be taken to the ward head, and the person will be taken to the village head for judgment”.
On the Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet Campaign in Dambatta, Ado Muhktar, spokesperson to Sarkin Bai, District Head of Dambatta, Dr Muhktar Adnan, said they are proud and thankful for the reduction of diseases in the community and the progress in the community.
“When the program was introduced to the community, they liked it but again the issues of funding, to construct toilets came in, so they were asking why should they spend money when they were familiar with their old ways of doing things.
“So instead of putting the money there, they will rather continue with their normal life and use their money elsewhere because they were used to OD. So as far as they were concern, they had not been any problem; later when children were affected by diarrhea, they will not be able to link it to OD, but when they saw the benefits, they started contributing and initiating the construction of toilets and they have all done it.”
On the challenges of implementing the campaign, he said it was the buying in from the community. He said, “When they were sensitized and briefed on the benefits, they are now participating fully and they are cooperating. They had issues at the beginning in the buying the initiative, but now they are okay.
“They are fully appreciative of the progress, in response to the program the community selected has been proven as ODF and in-houses and around house, they are making sure complete sanitation, keeping to the standard to maintain the standard.”
Open defecation has an economic, social and health impact on national development. Nigeria is rank second behind Indian among countries practicing Open defecation. According to UNICEF 47 million Nigerians practice in open defecation.
With the practice of open defecation, more than 100,000 children under five years of age die each year due to diarrhea; of which 90 percent is directly attributed to unsafe water and sanitation.  The practice of open defecation has it negative impact in the economic cause the country to lose about N445billion of it GDP annually due to poor sanitation.
Nigeria is currently on a campaign journey towards becoming ODF by 2025 with support of UNICEF and other development partners; to this end with UNICEF support 11 LGAs in Nigeria are ODF, which include: 2 LGA in Jigawa, 1 in Benue, 6 in Cross River and 2 LGAs in Bauchi State.
According to a UNICEF, WASH Specialist Bioye Ogunjobi, “In Kano we are working in six LGAs and we have two other project in two LGAs and kano has 44 LGAs, so government has a lot of work to do to replicate the models in those eight LGAs in the remaining 36 LGAs; that is what we are expecting government to do.
“The success in those six LGAs will go a long way in motivating other LGAs but the government needs to push for that otherwise the work on those six LGAs will just be like a drop in the ocean. For now there is no ODF LGA in Kano.
To corroborate this, the Minister of Water Resources on Monday said that the Federal Government had pledged to provide public toilet facilities across the nation to address the menace of open defecation, adding that the clean campaign “is a national programme to re-strategies on ways to do away with the menace of open defecation in Nigeria.”
According to UNICEF Nigeria needs to add 2 million toilets per years between 2019 and 2025 to achieve the target of Universal Basic Sanitation, while it current delivery of improved toilet is approximately 160,000 per year.
Bringing behavioural change to ensure use of toilet could be a tough task, but if achievable in Yammawar Fulani Community through fines, it should be replicated by communities, LGAs and other states.
The government must play a role for this to succeed by providing improved toilets on every street in states across the country, provide loans to homes that cannot afford to construct toilet.