For environmentalists and medical doctors, living on or close to dumpsites is bad. While scavengers see it as cash cow, residents of streets around Igando dumpsite want the Lagos State government to fulfil its promise of relocating it, writes DAVID ADEJO
Abdul Basheer thought those who travelled ‘abroad’ always have hard currency to display and spend.
Basheer’s uncle, who returned from overseas, had enormous wealth to throw about. People always went to him for gratification. So Basheer looked forward to going to a land flowing with milk and honey to make money and display wealth to the envy of his peers.
The Niger Republic citizen’s hope of travelling abroad manifested one day when one of his friends, simply identified as Mojo, muted the idea of travelling to Nigeria for a business trip.
In Nigeria, Basheer looked forward to having all the good things of life at his beck and call. Instead of experiencing rosy situations, things became awry. It dawned on Basheer that he had to struggle to make ends meet.
Days turned to weeks and weeks to months , yet still situations never changed for the better.
He decided to join garbage collectors and accepted a job offer with Private Sector Participants (PSP) operating at Igando Dumpsite.
Basheer is now one of the scavengers who live on the dumpsite. Sometime they make up to N10, 000 or less.
While the Igando dumspite is a blessing to the likes of Basheer, residents see it as a curse.
The Igando dumpsite sits on the equivalent of three bus stops at the Igando/Ikotun Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos State and stretched across the swamp of Isheri Igando-LASU Express Road. It is on both sides of the two carriages from Hotel Bus Stop, Lanre Bus stop and Oko Filling Station Bus Stop.
An environmentalist, who resides in the area, Solomon Babatunde, said: “We have over six communities along the dumpsite, including recreational centres, hotels, schools; hospitals even the Alimoso General Hospital, Lagos State Nursing School Complex and hostels. Many of these places such as the recreational centre whose premises have been overrun at Oko Filling Station have had to abandon its investment at Igando.
“One street is totally closed due to the activities of the garbage operators, while the compactors that tip their loads at the dumpsite are causing long traffic jams and accidents in the area; because they parked their trucks indiscriminately on the road. As a result, the road, which was supposed to be an expressway, is riddled with craters which are threatening to cut the road into two,” Babatunde said.
“In 2015, the dumpsite had combusted with an intense fire that ravaged the communities, leaving in its wake losses which, till date, remained unestimated. Smoke from the inferno affected my grandmother, “Mama Esther Osinbajo of Naiyeju Street. Who died from asthma three weeks later,” Olaitan Osinbajo, grandson of the late Mama Esther Osinbajo said.
The degraded environment and the stench oozing out of the area leave its imprint on the lives of the people. Residents live with rashes and all manner of thronchial infections such as coughs and asthma and others.
Unusually big black and green houseflies are common at Igando and they could perch on foods and drinking water. Because all drainage around the dumpsite are permanently blocked, the water forms a pool, which has turned black, smelly and odious. Anytime there is rainfall, the flood backflows and overruns homes. Olaitan whose father’s building is at Naiyeju Street said.
“We have stayed back here in spite of these excruciating crises that the dumpsite has brought us because we don’t have another place to go. When its rains, we suffer the most as flood and reptiles attack us, scorpions and other insects feed on our children. I bought this land and built it to live here. We have been asked to move away from here, but we don’t have any other place to go and government does not provide accommodation for us,’ a resident who wants to remain anonymous said.
“My child was sick and died as a result of the infections suffered from the dumpsite. We are a regular face at the hospital for treatment always; my family can’t afford the rent elsewhere. When we bought our land the family had told us that government would soon close the dumpsite. That was over 10 years ago and we have been coping with this menace since then,” a woman, simply known as Iya Rasheedat lamented.
A cart pusher, Rabiu Inusa, said he lives on the dumpsite, ‘I am from Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State. I came to Lagos to eke out a living here. I collect disposed pet bottles at the dumpsite and sell them, I pay the operators at the dumpsite’, I don’t want the site to be closed because that is where I make money to feed my family, Rabiu said.
John Gbologe, Chairman of Afenifere Community Development Association, said: “Residents could not drink water from the boreholes in the area”.
The community leader alleged that the Igando dumpsite has become a hideout for hardened criminals. He alleged that several times arrests were made by men of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS), Area “M,” Ikotun and Igando policemen. Gbologe urged the government to relocate the site as people living in the community are suffering from the environmental, health, and social effect as a result of the dumpsite location in this area.
The Area “M” Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Ifeanyi Ohuruzo, said: “I am just few weeks old in this command and have not got reports from my DPOs on any activity by dumpsite criminals.” The police chief said he would, however, beam his periscope on the area.
The Medical Director of Alimosho General Hospital, Dr. Madewa Adebajo, lamented the activities of the operators of the dumpsite.
“We appreciate the effort of Lagos State government on waste management, there is wealth in waste and that the government was already on that path. It’s just a matter of time. The dumpsite has been there for a long time,” the medical director said.
Adebajo said the government was making effort to move it from there. ‘’The government has said several times, everybody knows the effect of the dumpsite on the environment. You don’t need any soothsayer to tell us that it has environmental and health hazards. But as a hospital, we are observing precaution to ensure that our patients were not infected by it.
’We don’t transfer patients from the hospital to other place to safeguard ourselves. The government came to look at the place and promised something will be done soon. We will continue to remind them, because patients come in here to ask, if the dumpsite would not affect them. They asked about its effect on patients. Of course we have been treating our patients with huge success states. It is not as if we can’ do it, but the best we can do is to move it away from there. All over the world, we don’t have that kind of place within the place where people leave. We know the government is doing its best and we are supporting it. We are optimistic that solution is coming very soon,’’ the physician said.
Dr. Adebajo said: “Former Lagos State Governor; Akinwumi Ambode shut the dumpsites at Epe and Oregun and planned to relocate the Igando dumpsite. But he did not do so before he left office”.
The Managing Director of Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA), Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said the dumpsite would be closed. He reiterated that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was concerned about the state of waste in Lagos and the Igando dumpsite.
“The plan to close the place down has not been jettisoned. It’s work in progress and would materialise soon,” Gbadegesin said.
Effort to reach the operators of the site was futile as they resist press presence. “We can’t talk to you, go to Alausa and talk to the minister. We are not doing illegal work here”, a man in his 50s said.
“My name is Ikechukwu Maduka, I live at Akesan and work at Iyana-Ipaja, the journey from my house to where I work is not more than 25 minutes, but it will take me about two hours to get to work due to the activities of the operators at Oko Filling Station bus stop. I was going to work early one morning when a vehicle in front of me ran into a PSP haulage vehicle packed indiscriminating at Oko Filling Station bus stop, we now have potholes in area as a result of the PSP and the dumpsite operators in the area, Maduka narrates his experience.
Lekan Suara, who lives at Ademola Nelson Bassey Street, said: “On several occasions, reports on the dumpsite and its environmental and health hazards was on newspapers and TVs but nothing was done. After sometime, the operators of the dumpsite will put some chemical and it becomes less malodorous. But within weeks, the smells come up again.
“Since the operators of the dumpsite are making money from the site, they will not be happy if the site is closed. The only solution is to relocate the dumpsite, close the present one and turn the garbage into wealth,” Suara said.
For now, the residents and the scavengers have to continue to live and chill with the waste and its side effects.
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