Lagos — Nigeria requiresmore than 120 million dollars (about N14 billion) to provide 62 million citizens access to basics anitation and hygiene by 2015.

The statistics were provided by the UNICEF"D" Field Office in Bauchi in response to anational survey on sanitation and hygieneundertaken by the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN). The target is in line with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on sanitation.

According to the UN agency, the country alsoneeds to build more than eight million toiletsbefore 2015 to achieve sustainable sanitation and hygiene.

In essense, Nigeria requires at least onemillion toilets annually across the 774 localgovernment areas.'

'The MDG target for sanitation is to halveby 2015 the proportion of people withoutsustainable access to basic sanitation."The action plan seeks to facilitate theconstruction of one million toilets annuallybetween 2008 and 2015.

"An estimated cost of about 120 milliondollars will be required to build one millionlatrines per annum, and three million dollarsis required for the hand washing campaign,"UNICEF states.

It says that this expenditure will provide anestimated 62 million citizens access tobasic sanitation and hygiene."For now, only about 150,000 toilet facilitiesare built per year in Nigeria," the agencynotes.

According to the UNICEF statistics, out ofthe country's population of 140 million, only53 per cent of urban and 36 per cent ofrural dwellers have access to safe sanitation.Less than 43 per cent of the total populationhave access to hand washing facilities, itsays.

The agency blames poor sanitation as thelargest direct cause of childhood mortalityand a major contributing factor to diarrhoea,malnutrition and pneumonia.

It cites diarrhoea as the largest cause ofchild mortality after malaria, representingabout 16 per cent of annual childhooddeaths.