Society wants the return of health inspectors

The Nigerian Environmental Society (NES), Lagos Island chapter, on Friday called for the return of health inspectors (popular known as wole-wole) in the 1960s, to improve home sanitation.

Mr John Ekoko, Chairman of the society, made the call during the interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), at the commemoration of World Toilet Day 2015 with the theme: Sanitation and Nutrition, in Lagos.

According to him, the commemoration should draw the attention of people to the need to imbibe proper sanitation when it comes to using the toilet.

It is important for us because lack of cleanliness has been responsible for a lot of diseases.

“A lot of germ carrying diseases reside where human wastes are found and they go to contaminate human beings and cause different diseases.

“In Nigeria, the toiletry system is made up of flush toilet, pit latrine and open/defecation in the bush.

“The danger now is that many people are exposed to threat from faecal diseases.

“There are health inspectors, whose job is to inspect the hygienic condition of houses, especially the way people dispose their wastes.

“We need solid ‘wole-wole’, health inspectors like we used to have in the 1960s, to come back’’, he said.

Ekoko held that the World Toilet Day should also be used to draw the awareness of home owners to the need to construct modern toilets.

According to him, many water or liquid samples taken have shown a high degree of chloroform, which is mostly carried by germs found in faeces.

He said that faecal chloroform caused dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera, among others.

The chairman noted that the fact that cholera kept re-occurring meant that people still used chloroform faecal infected water.

He said the government should try to enforce the use of modern sanitary toilet with proper flushing so that people can observe a high level of hygiene.

He advised that the government should ensure that house owners dug septic tanks in such a way that the water did not seep.

He said if septic tank was not properly constructed, the water could join the underground water and pollute it.

Ekoko said there was a need to enforce the law on open defecation as the faeces enter the surface water and form the faecal chloroform that pollutes the water.

He said many houses around the lagoon had their latrines emptying right into the lagoon. “This is unhygienic.’’