The Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, has apologised to residents over the persistent delays in refuse collection across the state, admitting that waste evacuation has fallen below expectations in recent months.
His apology comes after growing complaints from Lagosians about overflowing refuse dumps along major roads, blocked drainage channels and neighbourhoods where waste has remained uncollected for weeks.
Many residents have expressed frustration on social media, blaming the delays for worsening environmental conditions and increasing public health risks.
Speaking on Friday, June 26, during The Morning Show on Arise Television, Wahab acknowledged the shortcomings in the state’s waste management system.
“Let me start by apologising to Lagosians. The past three, four months have been very bad with respect to waste collection, but we didn’t just get there overnight,” he said.
“I won’t play the ostrich by not admitting we had a challenge. Are we fixing it? Yes.”
Wahab explained that the Lagos State Government has begun implementing measures to improve waste collection while pursuing broader reforms to modernise the sector.
His remarks follow Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s directive for continuous waste evacuation across the state to clear refuse heaps from roads and other public spaces.
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The commissioner said Lagos could no longer depend on its long-standing waste disposal model, which focuses on collecting refuse and transporting it to landfill sites.
He noted that rapid urban expansion around major landfill locations, including Olusosun and Solous, has made the system increasingly unsustainable.
“For decades, we had practised a linear waste system. We just pick waste and we dump. Olusosun and Solous were the outskirts of Lagos. We all went to build around them,” he said.
“We can’t sustain that. We don’t even have the land. If our total land mass is 0.4 percent of the country’s land mass, 3,355 square kilometres of land, it shows we must think outside the box.”
According to Wahab, the state is now shifting towards a circular waste economy, where refuse is treated as a valuable resource rather than discarded as waste.
He cited the establishment of a biodigester facility at the Ecocircuit Centre, which converts food waste into energy, as part of the transition.
The commissioner added that a larger waste-to-energy plant capable of processing about 4,250 tonnes of waste daily is also under development.
As part of efforts to improve environmental sanitation, the Lagos State Government recently reinstated the monthly sanitation exercise, which resumed in April after being suspended for nearly a decade following a court ruling in 2016.
