By Abdulwasiu Hassan
Toilet euphemisms litter the world of slang. From the staid "Necessary House" to the strange Scottish coinage "Shankie and Cludgie."
Whatever your choice of colloquialism, the universal truth of the matter is that toilet has if not the most favourite then an irreplaceable place in our lives. Exactly why public toilets are big business in Africa and other places.
Nigeria needs at least 11 million public toilets from now till 2025, or 3.9 million toilets every year, for it to be able to end open defecation, one of the key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
"Toilet-business owners are the answer to the pressing national sanitation emergency," Dr Jane Bevan, UNICEF Nigeria's chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), said at a toilet business owners' conference held recently in the capital city of Abuja.
Adamu Umar, who operates a commercial toilet in a community on the outskirts of Abuja, is one of the many business owners trying to help fill the gap and push Nigeria closer to the goal of ending open defecation.
Umar ventured into the business about 20 years ago after seeing his brother make a success of his toilet initiative. Abuja's informal settlements that house thousands of informal workers and others seeking greener pastures meant that the opportunity was always there.
But just when Umar's foray into the field was beginning to pay dividends, his first public convenience venture hit a roadblock.
The building housing the toilet was among those demolished by the Federal Capital Territory Administration for being built without approval sometime after 2000.
Opportunities
Public toilets are a business opportunity waiting to be explored not just in Nigeria. Several countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are facing an acute shortage of toilets, which poses a threat to their ability to meet the target of ending open defecation by 2025.
"Open defecation contaminates sources of drinking water and spreads diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery. The World Health Organisation estimates that inadequate sanitation causes 432,000 diarrhoeal deaths annually," according to the World Bank.
An estimated 779 million people in Africa still lack access to basic sanitation services such as safe toilets, WHO's regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said on World Toilet Day last year.
UNICEF data shows that about 71% of people in Niger Republic practise practise open defecation. Overall, 122 million people in West and Central Africa have no choice but to defecate in the open.
In Togo, three million out of about nine million people that make up the country do not have access to toilets, according to UNICEF. Similarly, one in 10 people practise open defecation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mixed fortunes
“I make 100,000 to 120,000 (US $131 to $157) naira a month from my public convenience business," John Nankat, a toilet business owner for over a decade in Nigeria, told TRT Afrika.
His 10-restroom business in Mararraba Aso, in Nasarawa State to the east of Abuja, faces a lot of problems, mostly related to hygiene awareness.
"A lot of users misuse the facility by passing excrement on the edges of the toilet as they believe their payment for the public convenience should take care of the mess they leave behind," he complained.
"We also have to live with the high cost of maintaining the facility, using chemicals to wash all the toilets in order for customers not to get infections from one another."
Disposal of faecal matter from time to time is one of the major challenges John faces in running his public convenience. Umar agrees after two decades of running his facility in Abuja. "The issue of toilet evacuation is a major one," he said.
One of Umar's newer facilities in Madalla, near Abuja, isn’t as lucrative as the older ones in the capital city. That’s because the lack of public infrastructure compared to Abuja city centre requires him to infuse more cash into the new business.
Role of investors
John believes there is need for more public awareness about the negative effect of open defecation and improper waste disposal. If this is achieved, more people will flock to public toilets than ever before.
Operators of such businesses, on the other hand, need to focus on greater hygiene by using effective chemicals to clean and disinfect public toilets.
"The government can assist in this regard by providing a sewage system in urban areas as well, and also provisions for evacuation of waste through truck tankers at more affordable charges," Umar said.
Liberalisation of land allocation for the purpose of constructing public toilets is also on the wish list. This, Umar said, must be done in a way to ensure that everyone who wants to venture into the business benefits from the policy rather than already moneyed investors close to public officials.
According to him, the government needs to make soft loans available to people who want to go into the business so as to increase the number of public toilets in the shortest possible time.
Some also suggest African countries can also redouble efforts in providing more government-owned public toilets in addition to private sector initiatives.
