By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 governorship election in Lagos State, Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV), has advised the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Mr Tokunbo Wahab, to resign over the state of the waste management system in the metropolis.

The opposition politician berated the state government for the handling of waste in the state, saying excuses have always been given for making the environment dirty.

“Impact is felt, not explained in 1,578 words. Your plastic policy has failed. Your environmental policy, if one truly exists, has been ineffective.

“Your waste management policy has been an unmitigated disaster. The only area where you have consistently delivered is the demolition of the hard-earned properties and livelihoods of ordinary citizens.

“Not to mention your Bigotry and Gaslighting. You have lost the moral authority to remain in office. You should resign,” the chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) posted on his X handle on Saturday.

He was reacting to comments made by Mr Wahab as to why the state has remained flooded after the rains despite the different policies put in place, including the ban on single-use plastic and the return of the monthly environmental sanitation.

“A lot of people are genuinely concerned about the waste situation in parts of Lagos, and that concern is understandable. Waste is not something you can talk around. If refuse is sitting on your street, beside your market, close to your bus stop, or inside the drainage near your house, the only thing that matters to you is that it should be removed. And that is fair.

“But it may also help to explain the scale of what is being managed, and what is actually being done.

“Lagos generates about 13,000 tonnes of waste every day. Not weekly. Every day. In May alone, LAWMA and PSP operators evacuated about 418,500 tonnes of waste across the state, which comes to an average of about 13,200 tonnes daily. That is not a small operation. It involves hundreds of PSP operators, public waste teams, transfer and disposal operations, street sweepers, enforcement teams, customer service staff, drivers, loaders, supervisors and monitoring officers working across a very large and difficult city.

“Just to mention, during the 2026 Hajj, Saudi Sanitation Authorities announced that a total of over 472 tons of waste were generated from Mina and Muzdalifah. This is the total waste generated by pilgrims all over the world in 5 days.

“Still, nobody is pretending that everything is fine everywhere. Some communities have had delays. Some PSP operators have not performed well. Some routes have grown beyond the capacity that was originally assigned to them. In some areas, road access is poor. During the rains, movement into disposal sites can become slower. Trucks break down. Diesel and spare parts are expensive. Payment compliance is also weak in many places, and when people do not pay for waste service, the operators struggle to maintain trucks, pay crews and keep to schedule. These are not excuses but the harsh realities that have to be fixed.

“That is why LAWMA has been reviewing weak routes, replacing and sanctioning underperforming operators, increasing monitoring, and deploying evacuation teams to pressure points. As of last month (May), 442 PSP operators were active across Lagos while 27 routes were under review for service improvement. LAWMA also received 474 complaints and service requests that month, which are now part of how the agency is identifying weak spots and following up on operator performance.

“There is also a daily blackspot operation that many people do not see unless it is happening near them. LAWMA clears  3,000 black spots every day across 57 routes. These are the road medians, market edges, illegal dumping points, bus stops, setbacks and open spaces where people keep dropping waste outside the normal collection system. Some are cleared in the morning and abused again by night. That is one of the hardest parts of the job.

“This is why enforcement has become more serious. In 2025, LAWMA recorded 1,023 incidents of illegal dumping and other waste violations across the state. Out of these, 447 cases were referred for prosecution. The surveillance teams also identified 431 scavengers and reconciled 145 properties with their assigned PSP operators. The data showed that much of the illegal dumping happens between midnight and early morning, and the waste is not only household refuse. It includes construction debris and even hazardous waste in some cases.

“So, when people say “just clear it,” we agree. It must be cleared. But we also have to stop the same locations from being turned back into dumpsites again and again.

“Street sweeping is another big part of the work. Lagos has thousands of sweepers working across hundreds of routes, including highways, medians and major public corridors. This work starts very early, and it is not easy work. Some areas are swept daily, but once people keep littering from vehicles, markets, shops and buses, the same routes look dirty again within hours. That is why the long-term answer cannot be sweeping alone. We need better behaviour, stronger enforcement, more mechanised sweeping on strategic roads, and safer working conditions for the sweepers.

“The bigger reform is infrastructure. Lagos cannot continue with the old collect-and-dump model. That is why construction is ongoing for Transfer Loading Stations to replace the old landfill operations at Olusosun in Ojota and Solous III in Igando. These will be supported by Material Recovery Facilities in Ikorodu and Badagry, so waste can be moved out of the centre of the city to modern facilities where it can be sorted, recovered, recycled and repurposed.

“The Olusosun system is expected to move about 2,500 tonnes of waste daily to the Ikorodu MRF, while the Solous III side is expected to move about 1,500 tonnes daily to the Badagry recovery facility. The target for this transition is 6 months. Once completed, it should reduce pressure on the old dumpsites, improve the flow of waste evacuation, reduce congestion around disposal points and give Lagos a more serious recovery and recycling platform.

“There is also the organic waste side, which is very important because a large part of Lagos waste is food and market waste. The Ikosi Fruit Market Biodigester has now been launched to treat organic waste closer to source and convert it into useful outputs like biogas, electricity and fertiliser. The plan is to replicate that model in other markets that generate high volumes of organic waste, instead of moving everything across the city to a landfill.

“So yes, the complaints are valid. Some backlogs should not have happened. Some residents have not received the service they deserve. Some operators have disappointed. There is no need to deny any of that.

“But the fuller picture is that waste is being evacuated daily, black spots are being cleared daily, operators are being monitored, weak routes are being reviewed, illegal dumping is being prosecuted, street sweeping is ongoing, and new infrastructure is being built to change the system from the ground up.

“The government has a duty to keep improving the system. Residents, markets, estates and businesses also have a duty to use the system properly and stop illegal dumping. Both things are true.

“Lagos is not where it should be yet. But it is not standing still either. The work now is to clear what has built up, fix the routes that are failing, hold operators accountable, and complete the infrastructure that will move Lagos from dumping to sorting, recovery, recycling, energy and circular economy.

“So, for your nomadic self to jump on the Governor’s release for your political agenda without talking solutions speaks to who you really are,” the Commissioner wrote.