Lack of accurate data makes it impossible to determine whether Nigeria is making progress to meet its MDGs targets in the WASH sector. In May 2005, the Nigerian Minister of Water Resources said that increased spending on water programmes resulted in a huge increase in the access to safe water supply, from 35% in 1999 to 68% in 2005. WHO, however, estimates that the figures are closer to 48% for improved drinking water and 44% for improved sanitation.

Nigeria’s water infrastructure has suffered from years of poor operation and maintenance, and the very low access to improved sanitation constitutes a serious public-health problem. Weak and inefficient institutions, unsustainable public sector spending, and persistent implementation failures have also contributed to poor access rates and sustainability. Most houses are built without toilet facilities: it is rare to find rural houses with personal toilets, and urban houses with 50 or more tenants may share one toilet. In 2008, the government promised to construct 1 million public latrines across Nigeria to serve more than 150 million people, but these needed facilities have not yet materialized (Adewara et al, 2011). As an indication of this poor situation, eleven states in Nigeria battled an extended cholera epidemic; of nearly 40,000 cases reported from January–October 2010, some 1,500 were confirmed dead (NigerianBulletin.com 2010; UN News Centre 2010).

Local governments are responsible for rural water service and share the costs of service with SWAs and the federal government. This is the case for both capital improvements and recurring operation and maintenance since water is often supplied free of charge. Most rural areas depend upon boreholes or hand-dug wells for water supply. At best, Village Level Operation and Maintenance hand pumps are available. Sanitation facilities continue to be inadequate as sector disorganization, institutional conflicts, and the lack of defined responsibilities prevail.

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a grass roots approach to open sanitation to get communities to completely eradicate open defecation. It has spread widely in Nigeria: the DFID-assisted SHAWN project National Assessment of CLTS showed that in October 2010 over 2,875 communities in 268 LGAs in 30 States were implementing CLTS and 659 communities had attained open defecation free (ODF) status. CLTS may provide an effective alternative to the public provision of services in rural areas.