Health
Lagos admits waste collection failures, defends reforms
Ayoola Babalola
Lagos State Government has acknowledged failures in waste collection and operational bottlenecks across the state, even as it defended its management of the growing refuse burden.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, stated this while responding to criticisms of the state’s waste management and flood control measures by the 2027 governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.
Rhodes-Vivour had raised concerns about refuse accumulation and flooding during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, describing parts of Lagos as “stinking”.
Wahab said the government accepted that residents did not everywhere receive satisfactory waste collection services, but disputed the suggestion that its response to the problem was limited to emergency evacuation of refuse.
He also rejected claims that it only clears waste after it accumulates.
“We acknowledge collection failures, underperforming PSP operators and operational bottlenecks. However, it is misleading to suggest that Lagos has no plan beyond clearing refuse after it accumulates,” he said.
The admission comes against the scale of the waste challenge in Lagos, which Wahab said generates between 13,000 and 15,000 tonnes of municipal waste daily.
He said the Lagos Waste Management Authority and private sector participation operators evacuated approximately 418,500 tonnes of waste in May 2026, equivalent to about 13,200 tonnes daily.
The commissioner, however, acknowledged that the evacuation figure should not be interpreted as evidence that the system is functioning satisfactorily for every resident.
He explained that the waste chain depended on the efficiency of several stages, arguing that delays at disposal facilities could slow down truck turnaround, disrupt collection schedules and ultimately leave refuse accumulated in neighbourhoods.
That problem, he said, had been exposed by recent operational difficulties at the Olusosun disposal facility, where the rehabilitation of Road E and the provision of additional disposal platforms had increased truck movements.
“Truck movements across disposal facilities rose to 1,866 in the week following the intervention, while Olusosun recorded an increase from 574 to 1,012 trips,” Wahab said.
Beyond removing accumulated refuse, Wahab said the government was pursuing a longer-term restructuring of the waste system through modern transfer loading stations, material recovery facilities, recycling, composting and the Epe waste-to-energy project.
“The objective is to transition from decades of pick-and-dump practices to a sustainable system where waste becomes a resource for energy and economic value,” he said.
He also said the state was strengthening its ability to monitor whether waste contractors were actually delivering the services for which they were engaged, through property enumeration, geocoded service locations, GPS tracking, weighbridge measurements, collection records and recovery data.
“The principle is straightforward: a modern waste management system must measure what it manages,” Wahab said.
The commissioner said the government was also reforming the PSP system, including sanctioning or terminating operators found to be underperforming.
He argued that the monthly environmental sanitation exercise should not be mistaken for a substitute for routine waste collection, saying the more important measures were the volume of waste collected, routes completed, missed collections, complaints resolved, recurring waste blackspots and the quantity diverted from landfills.
On flooding, Wahab said the state had invested in drainage infrastructure, pump stations, year-round maintenance and flood-abatement operations, while also preserving wetlands and removing structures on floodplains.
He added that the government had introduced restrictions on styrofoam and single-use plastics as part of its environmental measures.
Wahab claimed that the interventions had reduced flooding incidents by between 75 and 80 per cent across the state.
He rejected the suggestion that the government had ignored flooding.
“It is therefore misleading to suggest that flooding is being ignored or that no meaningful progress has been made,” he said.
The commissioner said the flooding challenge also had to be considered against Lagos’ coastal geography, tidal conditions and the effects of climate change.
“Even the most resilient drainage infrastructure cannot entirely eliminate flash flooding in a coastal megacity,” Wahab said.
But he maintained that criticism of the government should take account of the interventions already undertaken rather than treating every flooding incident as evidence that no preventive measures exist.
“While challenges remain, the evidence of sustained interventions must form part of the conversation,” Wahab said.
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