Many houses built in Jos are without toilet facilities, says JMDB

The Acting Managing Director of Jos Metropolitan Development Board (JMDB), Mr Kefas Yilrwang lamented that some houses in Bukuru and Jos metropolis were built without toilet facilities.

Yilrwang told journalists in Jos that the absence of such facilities had led to open defecation and created health problems in the affected towns.

According to him, occupants of such houses simply locate nearby bush or abandoned building structures, to ease themselves.

He explained that the cost of renting such houses was normally ‘very cheap,’ as such, tenants went for them (house) even though they were aware of the absence of toilets.

He reminded landlords that any house without adequate toilet facility was an illegal structure and must have been built without supervision by the board.

Also commenting on the development, Mr Joshua Nyako, Director, Environmental Health, JMDB, said landlords of houses without toilet were first given verbal warning .‎He said that if another inspection was conducted after one week and no measures were taken, the landlord would then be served abatement notice for 30 days.

Nyako further explained that after a given time frame the problem was not addressed, landlords would then be sanctioned according to the provisions of the law.

Meanwhile, some tenants of such houses said that although they were concerned about living in buildings devoid of toilet facilities, they could not help the situation.

One of such tenants in Jos, Mr Edgar Agbo, said that his landlord had been promising for the past four years to build a toilet, but was yet to do so.

” I accepted to rent the house because it’s a stone’s throw from my office and relatively cheap, but that is not an excuse for me to live in a house without toilet, ” he confessed.

A female tenant, Vicky Kunsum, said she often went to nearby ‘bush’ to defecate, adding, “that is what most tenants in this area do.”

‘’It is not a new thing; we are used to it and we have accepted it because the house rent is very cheap and affordable to us.

“Some day, our income might improve to enable us secure accommodations with toilet facilities, but for now, this is what we can afford, ” she said.

On his part, another tenant, Mr Peter Dum, also said he could not afford the cost of accommodation with toilets, as such often patronized ‘gutters’ and ‘uncompleted building’ in the dark hours, to ease himself.