• Residents, motorists denounce the lack of public toilets
The inadequacy of public toilets and sanitation in several parts of Lagos is cause for concern. It is not uncommon to see locals defecating in open spaces at the mercy of nature.
In Oshodi, home of the $ 70 million transport interchange and arguably Nigeria’s busiest ports of call, the situation is worsening as there are a limited number of public toilets for thousands of commuters in transit. .
The expectation is that a place like Oshodi should have several good public toilets.
But this is not the case because open defecation is becoming the norm.
This act is widespread from Isolo stretching up the Oshodi / Apapa highway to Oshodi / Agege Motor Road and the Oshodi market including the railway line.
The perpetrators include tanker drivers, touts, mechanics and traders, as these groups of people are still in the area on a daily basis.
There is only one commercial public toilet on hand that serves thousands of commuters, travelers and traders.
Commercial bus drivers and residents, who spoke to The Guardian, said indiscriminate disposal of faeces had become of greater concern in the region.
The situation, they said, is now so bad that disposable plastic plates are being used for defecating. Even the railway project along the Oshodi / Agege Motor Road axis is not spared. All parts of the rails are filled with faeces. Yet people eat and sleep there. Whenever it rains, passers-by navigate through the flood mixed with droppings as they make their way to their destination. The beautifully constructed gutters have become septic tanks.
A commercial bus driver in Oshodi, Mr. Olakun Bakare, said the government should build more public toilets to reduce open defecation.
“We are going through a difficult time and open defecation is our biggest problem. Talking about feces, did you ask us how we sleep and eat on this road? We eat, defecate and sleep here.
We have to eat here because we cannot go home because our house is very far away.
“If we say we want to go to the bathroom, where do we go? How many public toilets did you see along the road? Another driver Musa Lekan said: “There is feces everywhere because people have to eat and if they eat, they have to defecate. When you are always on the road and there are no public toilets, where do you defecate other than on the road or in the nearby bush? We cannot walk home because it is far away.
At Oshodi bus station, travelers who also decried the environmental conditions, one of them, Ms Funke Lawal, said: “Many people in this area are no longer ashamed because they openly defecate.
The government should provide more toilets in the park and make them free. A lot of people can’t line up for just one toilet compartment, but if there are a lot of them and strategically located in different places here, I think more people will use the toilet, ”she said.
