HEAPS OF REFUSE TAKE OVER LAGOS
LAGOSIANS MUST RISE UP TO PRESSURE THE GOVERNMENT TO MANAGE WASTE EFFECTIVELY TO AVERT LIKELY EPIDEMIC
It is shocking to see most parts of Lagos in mess and filth due to the failure of the Lagos State Government to properly manage waste disposal. Lagos prides itself as Centre of Excellence but the simplest task of waste management cannot be handled by the State Government.
By Chinedu Bosah
Publicity Secretary, Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights (CDWR)
In most parts of Lagos, household waste is collected once in four months by which time everywhere has become messy. Indeed, in some other places, residents are abandoned to dispose waste as they can. In Harmony Estate and its environs in Aboru, Alimosho LGA, the waste disposal company (Urban Care) collects waste once in 13-plus weeks, thereby creating serious public health crisis. The last time Urban Care PSP collected waste in many parts of Aboru community was on May 28, 2026. As a result of this obvious failure, rodents and wild birds have taken over the environment. Besides, another private waste contractor (Oye Balogun Enterprises) whose franchise covers Charity Road, Abulegba and environs has even introduced a fraudulent measure usually adopted by the electricity distribution companies that issues bills without service. Oye Balogun, which last collected waste in April 2025, has been issuing waste bills to No 49 Charity Road, for instance, till date such that the property has accumulated over N250,000, without enjoying any service, as a consequence.
We call on the Lagos State Government to invest in waste management system that keeps our communities clean and safe. There is threat of epidemic due to overflown garbage that now compete with humans for space and survival. Is it not ironical the same Lagos State Government who undemocratically imposed a monthly sanitation exercise on the people cannot regularly collect waste let alone manage it properly.
The Lagos State Government has displayed utter ineffectiveness and lack of seriousness in waste management. The model adopted by the government in the last 27 years is a so-called private/public partnership wherein the private sector brings little or no investment but profits from it because they are affiliated to the ruling party or connected to top political office holders and are maintained on patronage. The private waste company get regular subventions (a secret arrangement not open to public scrutiny) and other forms of support while still charging residents for waste disposal.
During a recent interview conducted by a radio station (Nigeria Info 99.3FM), the Lagos State Deputy Governor and the gubernatorial candidate of the ruling APC for the 2027 elections, Obafemi Hamzat, exposed the utter bankruptcy and poor thinking of the ruling elite in Lagos State. He stated that LAWMA is handling the scale of work that was never predicted citing an example of poor people living on the street and cannot be measured and planned for while the scale of waste is 17,000 tons instead of 13,000 tons originally envisaged. He also reduced the whole problem of waste management to inadequate refuse trucks and claimed that the state and Local Government have ordered 214 refuse trucks (114 trucks by the 57 LGA/LCDA and 100 by the Lagos State Government), something that will arrive in the country in September 2026. He also admitted that some of the 840 trucks deplored by the 420 private waste disposal companies are unusable and in bad condition.
While there is acute shortage of refuse trucks, it is not the only major element of the waste management crisis in the state. The fact is that the dumpsites remain the biggest problem because the Lagos State Government did not only fail to plan for a mega city but runs an unsustainable refuse dumpsites system. There are two major dumpsites (Epe and Badagry) currently in use and they will soon suffer the same terminal fate as the previous dumpsites (Igando, Ojota, Ile-epo etc.). The operational dumpsites are located in the two extremes of the state and will take some trucks over 4 hours to reach, a 62 Km or more distance in a chaotic Lagos and sometimes still spend 2 days in the queue before off-loading. This is not a workable arrangement, it is chaos! So, even the 214 additional trucks, which Hamzat talked about, will not resolve the waste crises since the whole system is broken as we currently have it
Had the Lagos State Government had their thinking cap on, for almost three decades in power, there would have been a refuse management system that includes sorting, recycling and waste-to-electricity incineration system.
The ruling party (APC) has been in power since 1999 in Lagos and 27 years after, there is no proper planning and management of waste commensurate with the population growth. Yet, Hamzat had the audacity to blame ordinary people for the disorganisation whereas the actual disorganisation was created by the clueless and thieving ruling elite of which he is a member
We call for consistent campaigns and mass actions in communities across the State to demand immediate evacuation of refuse and proper refuse management system. The community groups can build a network for a joint campaign and name a day of mass protest over the refuse crisis and other anti-poor policies of the state government.
If the APC government cannot manage waste properly, it has no business being in power. They should be done away and be booted out as their continued stay in power is a threat to humanity. If Hamzat wins the next gubernatorial election, the disorganization and failure of governance will continue. However, this is not peculiar to the APC and Hamzat; it is the same with other pro-capitalist and self-serving candidates and parties, not only in Lagos but also across the country. Unfortunately, there is no mass party that genuinely represents the interests and aspirations of the working people and youth at present both in the state and nationally. So, any campaign against the current refuse crisis must be linked with the efforts at building a mass working people’s political alternative.
CDWR e-mail: [email protected]