Nearly seven in ten women in Nigeria have no access to a safe toilet, threatening their health and exposing them to shame and abuse, Country Representative of WaterAid Nigeria, Dr. Michael Ojo, said yesterday in Abuja.

Ojo, who spoke at the commemoration of World Toilet Day in Abuja, said 54 million Nigerian women and girls lacked safe and adequate sanitation and 17 million of them don't have toilet at all.

"Every year, over 85,000 mothers in Nigeria lose a child to diarrhoeal diseases caused by a lack of adequate sanitation and clean water. Lack of decent sanitation also affects productivity and livelihoods. Women and girls living in Nigeria without toilet facilities spend 3.1 billion hours each year finding a place to go to the toilet in the open," Ojo said.