A study of access to sanitation profiles of rural upland and coastal communities of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

In developing countries, e.g., Nigeria, several communities have limited access to sanitation and sanitation facilities, thus such communities dump their solid and liquid wastes indiscriminately. The aim of this study was to assess access to sanitation, and compare basic sanitation facilities between upland and coastal communities of Akwa Ibom State. With a cross-sectional design, 420 respondents were selected and administered questionnaires to obtain information on sanitation and sanitation facilities of the communities using a multi-stage random sampling technique. Result shows that faecal disposal facilities available for upland and coastal communities were respectively 187(89.05%) and 98(46.67%). 30(26.79%) of households defecate in open bodies of water in the coastal areas, while upland communities do not. Also, 9(39.13%) and 64(57.14%) of upland and coastal areas respectively, defecate in bushes/swamps, while 14(60.87%) and 18(16.07%) bury their faeces in pits. On the whole, improved sanitation coverage recorded 61.90% and 38.10% respondents for the rural upland and coastal communities respectively, while unimproved sanitation coverage for upland and coastal communities recorded 31.43% and 68.57% respectively. This indicates that sanitation facilities and coverage are worse in the rural coastal areas. In conclusion, both upland and coastal communities of Akwa Ibom State still lack adequate sanitation, although the upland communities enjoy relatively improved sanitation than the coastal communities.

Assessment of Sanitation and Water Supply Coverage in a Rural Community of Kogi State, Nigeria

“…The results obtained in this study shows a similar trend with the studies of Okon et al [6] [14] the major problems facing the Nigerian rural environments, are linked to public health, such as contamination of drinking water and insufficient or non-existent Sanitation infrastructures. This implies that, with a majority 56.62% of the households relying on the River for their household water supply and the 48% involved in open defecation (sometimes within close proximity to the river), the threat to public health is high, thus requiring urgent attention of policymakers and stakeholders to take proactive and urgent steps to curb this threat to public health.…”

“…The report on sanitation is even worse as only 30% of Sub-Saharan Africa has access to improved sanitation facilities leaving about 70% without access [5]. As a result of the limited access to sanitation facilities, people in rural communities resort to indiscriminate open defecation which has the tendency of contaminating their surface water sources [6,7].…”

A study of access to sanitation profiles of rural upland and coastal communities of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

“…The area of study is Akwa Ibom State, which is located at the coastal South-Nigeria, and lying between latitudes 5 o 331'' North, and longitudes 7 o 251'' and 8 (Okon, 2016). It covers a total land area of 7,249km with a 2006 Nigerian National Population Census of 3,902,051 people ( Figure 1).…”

“…Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for safe disposal of human faeces and urine (Okon, 2016). Eja (2014) also defines sanitation as a system of disposal of solid and liquid wastes in order to maintain public hygiene and thus sanitation is synonymous with public hygiene.…”

“…That is why some communities may have access to water without access to improved water sources. Access to drinking water means that the source is less than 1 kilometer (30 minutes round trip) away from its place of use, and might be possible to obtain at least 20 litres per member of a household per day (Okon, 2016). Improved sanitation facility is one that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact (Okon, 2016).…”