Nigeria’s water and sanitation: spaces of risk and the challenges of data

Global interest on ‘safer water’ and ‘improved sanitation’ coverage has long been sustained by their capacity to trigger public health problems as demonstrated by several scientific conclusions (Curtis et. al 2011, Cairncross et. al 2010, White et. al 1972, Esrey et. al 1991, Khan 1992, Bradley 1977). The very formal and most popular framework that reflected the consensus of the global community at mainstreaming Water and Sanitation issues into the international development agenda came at the instance of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which proposed to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world’s population without access to clean water and adequate sanitation. This framework has become the basis for producing statistics by government agencies and other public bodies relating to global water and sanitation access most especially for the developing countries (We use official statistics to refer to numerical data collected and published by government agencies or other public bodies such as international organizations).