Early morning at Abokobi Somanya when the day is yet to wash itself of the darkness, 70-year-old Akweley wobbles on her walking stick as she walks towards the local public toilet.

It’s a little past 5:30 am but she’s too late to occupy one of the eight seats in the latrine.

More than a dozen people, mostly young men and women, stand in long queues with pieces of newspaper in had awaiting their turn to poo.

The whitewashed brick house built more than 50 years ago, shows deep cracks and burrows. It serves about 5,000 residents here.

Somanya Abokobi is a sprawling town and buildings here are mostly mud houses with rusty roofs.

“Our toilet is a colonial toilet. The people here are too many to use just this facility,” Isaac Sackey, a resident complains.

There’s a big fear among residents that the facility could collapse on patrons anytime.

Residents of Somanya Abokobi are mostly subsistence farmers and petty traders who earn just enough to take care of their families.

Until late last year, they did not use the facility during the rainy season because they could not raise money to replace the roof which had been ripped off by a storm.

“We’re in a toilet crisis,” another resident Emmanuel Sackey said.

Somanya Abokobi faces a crisis, a toilet crisis.

 

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