ASSESSMENT OF SANITARY AND HYGENE STATUS OF UNREGULATED PREMISES IN FADIPKE AREA OF MINNA, NIGER STATE, NIGERIA
Keywords:
Sanitary, Hygiene Status, Unregulated Premises, FadikpeAbstract
This study was carried out to assess sanitary and hygiene status of unregulated premises in Fadikpe Area of Minna. The primary data sources used include oral interview, questionnaire administration and field survey. Sites selected encompass a variety of premises with sanitation and hygiene challenges within the study area. The secondary data sources used include information from dissertations, textbooks, newspapers, journals, unpublished texts, collection of e-books and the internet that are relevant to this study. All information gathered through the utilization of questionnaire and oral interview were analyzed through frequency percentage of data analysis. The study showed that respondents using pipe-borne water regularly accounted for 75.6%, well water 82.2%, 70.6% use borehole water, while only 21.4% of the respondents uses rainfall water regularly and the proportion that use water from purchase source regularly represent 52.5 percent. This revealed that the major source of water supply is well water which is regularly available during the rainy season. The finding shows the distribution of toilet type, pour flush accounted for major type of toilet facility (27.9%) found in most home, ventilated improved latrine ranked second with 23.3%, pit latrine (18.8%), water closet (16%). However, open defecation is still in practice in some homes which accounted for 14% of the respondents’ type of toilet use. Rapid population growth ranked the highest with 27.2%, corruption ranked second with 21.4%, scarcity of water during dry season ranked third 16.9%, high level of illiteracy and poverty ranked fourth with 15.6% and extreme climate and rainfall variability ranked the least with 4.2% of the respondents. This revealed that the major constraints to adequate provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in the study area is rapid population growth. Findings of this study serves as a “wake-up call” to Niger state Government to exhibit an active interest in training and retraining of Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) and provide necessary resources that will enhance their performance in discharging their statutory responsibility.