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Tag: Refuse

  • Fear of epidemic, as refuse takes over Lagos

    Fear of epidemic, as refuse takes over Lagos

    •Residents express fear of failing system

    In recent weeks, there are fears that Lagos, Nigeria’s proud megacity, may be reverting to its bad old days of refuse heaps and stench. Gboyega Alaka reports.

    When a GenZ netizen made a post earlier in the year rubbishing Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve-center and one which prides itself as the ‘Center of Excellence’ among comity of states, as ‘smelling’, the internet, especially the social media went agog with reactions. While her usually angry fellow netizens gave her kudos and praised her to high heavens for her boldness and for saying what they considered ‘obvious truth’, many circumspect adults and a small fractions of the youth demographic, especially those who felt emotional attachment to the state, went wild with anger, condemning the reckless statement, which they claim came from a visitor, who had hardly stayed in the city long enough to understand its complexities or even moved around enough to appreciate its beautiful areas.

    More of this latter group also felt angered because they knew where the state was coming from, especially in the pre-1999 years and the recent Vision Scape misadventure. They also knew the effort of the authorities and would therefore have none of such sweeping insolent statement.

    Over the past decades, the state, which assumed the megacity status on account of its over 20 million population, has also gained notches higher on several indices, starting with its vibrant economy, which ranked it as the fifth largest in Africa; accompanied by its robust BRT bus transportation system, which plies dedicated routes, delivering quality service and ferrying passengers to their destinations in record time irrespective of the city’s stubborn traffic challenge. It has also improved in road infrastructure, efforts in medical sector, sports, even socials.

    Most recently, it further upped the ante with the takeoff of the Blue and Red Line railway transport system, with the Purple, Green and Orange lines underway.

    Sanitation, though far from perfect, had also attained an appreciable level, especially with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) sanitation formula, which has seen the state maintain a commendable refuse evacuation pattern, collaborating with private partners/operators even as far as its remotest crannies. Up until recently, it was not uncommon to hear Lagosians boast that you couldn’t see a refuse dump on any major Lagos road until you crossed its borders.

    Changing story

    However, the story seems to be changing, albeit negatively, and fast too. Almost overnight, refuse seems to be finding its way back to Lagos roadsides and medians. Not since the days of the failed Vision Scope experiment has refuse found comfort within Lagos metropolis, like it seems to be at the moment.

    From Apapa-Oshodi to Ladipo, Mushin to Iyana Ejigbo, Ikotun to Egbeda and Iyana Ipaja, LASU-Iyana-Iba Road, despicable spectacles now greet motorists and commuters, as roadsides and road medians seems to have become destinations for heaps and mounds of refuse.

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    Even Ikeja Central Business District is not spared, as man and vehicles now compete with refuse for right of way. A most horrific example would be the scene by the side of the Ikeja flyover right opposite Ipodo market.

    At the Ikotun-Oke-Afa-Jakande Gate axis, it’s a case of everywhere you look. Between Jakande Gate Bus Stop and Ikotun, this reporter counted a total of 15 refuse dump points. Almost opposite the globally renowned Synagogue Church of All Nations, one of the heaps spread almost 50 meters long and about four feet high, as if in defiance to the huge church monument and the global audience it regularly welcomes. The case was worse and an eyesore at the nearby Ikotun market, as bagged and ‘unbagged’ refuse grace the median in a most nauseating manner amidst huge stench.

    The traders, it seems, have found a way to carry out their daily routine without recourse to the eyesore and stench, as they all carried on with business, as if nothing was amiss.  Ditto for the patrons/customers and passersby. As for the bus drivers and conductors, it’s as if the stench was a mirage and non-existent, as they constantly blared their destinations in search of passengers, opening their buccal cavity as wide as they could. For the passengers trapped in the axis’s unending traffic or those saddled in the buses, waiting for them to fill up and move, it’s mixed reactions, as some ignored while some hurried the drivers up, and some, it appeared, were not even aware of any stench, as they, in some cases, chewed away on one snack or the other, or chatted away with their next seat neighbor/s.

    An attempt to get one of the traders selling right opposite a decaying mound of refuse to speak on the matter drew not just a snarl but a string of expletives.

    “I beg no wahala me this morning. Why are you asking me why they have not evacuated the refuse. Na me be LAWMA (Lagos State Waste Management Authority) abi na me be PSP people wey no come pack dirty?”

    Another trader, an okro seller, however, refutes the conception that the LAWMA PSP people no longer come to evacuate the wastes.

    “They do come actually, sometimes, every three days, sometimes, twice or thrice a week. I can tell you that they came just yesterday, but the challenges they have has to do with the vehicles they compete with while trying to evacuate the wastes, and the number of wastes that pileup almost immediately after. You know this is a hugely populated area. Even the market alone is so huge, with thousands of traders and customers. The worst part is that people, who are not traders in the market, bring their wastes from inside the streets to dump on the road with the expectation that LAWMA trucks would evacuate them. Meanwhile, we the market traders are the ones who bear the brunt, because we pay, while they don’t. I pay three thousand naira every month for instance. But when they fail to pack the refuse, even for a day or two, and it starts smelling, it is still we traders in the market who suffer from the stench and possible disease that come with it.”

    Another woman, who sells light stuff nearby corroborated the fish seller’s statement. She, however, suggested that the LAWMA trucks come every day and operate at night. That way, she said, today’s refuse will not meet tomorrow’s, and will not then pile up to the point that it becomes an eyesore, or begin to stink or constitute threat of disease outbreak.

    “Sometimes, even when they come, they do very poor job, such that half of the refuse is left behind,” she said.

    A fish seller nearby would concur with the two earlier respondents, but recommended that the government employs more officials to monitor and keep away people who come from inner streets to dump their refuse bags on the road. “If possible, government should employ more KAI officers to monitor and keep away those who come from the streets to dump their refuse here. They should also get more PSP people to run the inner streets because most of them don’t see any LAWMA or PSP trucks for weeks. In my street for instance, we see them maybe once a month. How do you then expect people to keep their wastes for a whole month?

    A few meters from the market, this reporter however noticed some huge bags of refuse that had been at the same place for days; same for the 50-meter long refuse heap near the Synagogue church, which clearly negates the assertion that the LAWMA trucks came just the day before.

    Apapa-Oshodi

    The same refuse scenario plays out along Apapa-Mile2-Oshodi Expressway. Notably from new Rainbow Flyover junction, to Coker Bus stop, to Sanya, Ijesha, Odi Olowu/Agunlejika, Cele Bus stops, heaps and spreads of refuse assume prides of place along the medians between the service lane and the fast lane, constituting clear eyesores and huge dents on the megacity image of the state.  Ijesha, Odi-Olowu and Cele Bus stops deliver the most despicable pictures, as they parade more refuse spots.

    A fruit seller at Ijesha Bus stop told this reporter that she couldn’t explain how the refuse got to the spots, but voiced her suspicion of people from nearby streets.

    A similar scenario played out at Sanya Bus Stop, where a commuter who gave his name as Samuel, waiting to board a bus, said the refuse heaps had become serious embarrassment and health threat to residents, as they have had to daily contend with the emanating stench while waiting to board buses to their destinations.

    “To make matters worse, nobody comes here to evacuate them, which is an embarrassment to a state like Lagos, with all its efforts and revenue at its disposal. This is a major highway, a road that links Nigeria’s biggest ports, even the airport. How then can the authorities pretend that they are not seeing this?”

    Between LASU and Igando on LASU-Iyana Iba road, this reporter counted over 20 refuse heapes dotting the expressway median.

    In all, it speaks of a collapsing or totally collapsed system

    Blame recalcitrant citizens – Ministry, LAWMA officials

    A visit to the Lagos State Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, however, yielded little answers, as all the principal officers were said not to be on seat. Even the ministry PRO would not speak with this journalist, directing his aid instead to refer him to LAWMA office.

    However, one official who spoke on condition of anonymity placed the blame for the anomaly on recalcitrant citizens who would rather dump their refuse on the road than patronise designated LAWMA trucks and pay.

    “You’ll be surprised that some of the people who perpetrate this evil are well educated people, who dress up and head for work early in the morning, but arm themselves with their bags of refuse, which they drop on the roadside when no one is watching. Some may even board a tricycle and drop the bag or bags as the vehicle ferries them to their destinations. Aside this, I can tell you for sure that there is nothing wrong with the state government or LAWMA’s refuse evacuation system.”

    Seeking further explanations, The Nation reached out to LAWMA via one of the agency’s hotlines. An official, who identified herself as Anuoluwapo equally blamed citizens seeking to avoid paying for LAWMA trucks services for the situation.

    “Our trucks go out every day to evacuate wastes.  Probably it is people who live in those areas that dump their refuse on the road. Each street is supposed to have designated trucks that go out to evacuate their wastes on daily or weekly basis; so if you say the refuse heaps are on the highways, then it has to be the people who live off those locations. Most of them commit this havoc when nobody is watching, especially at night or very early in the morning. But we also have trucks for intervention that go out to evacuate such wastes. Now that you have brought this to our notice, we will send our intervention trucks out to clear them.”

    About Ikotun market, Anuoluwapo said: “I can assure you that we have trucks covering the market and which goes out regularly. The problem with areas like that is that right after they clear the wastes, they pile up again, and it will now look like they were never evacuated.”

    As a way out, Anuoluwapo said: “It is for this reason that our enforcement teams go out regularly to carry out enforcement in some areas that have become eyesores.”

    The anonymous ministry official also recalled how the enforcement unit went out recently to arrest people who go out in the morning to dump their refuse on roadsides, reminding this reporter of a video that went viral some weeks back. “I can assure you that those people who were caught will never try it again. Besides, the punishment for anybody caught is three months imprisonment without any option of fine,” she said.

  • Akowonjo residents appeal to govt over refuse

    Days after the Lagos State House of Assembly ordered the Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators to return to work, heaps of refuse still litter Akowonjo in Alimosho Local Government.

    The development prompted the residents, who admitted that the PSP operators had returned to work in some areas, to appeal to the government to ensure their area was freed of waste, in order to prevent health hazards.

    The residents told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Lagos that VisionScape, the company contracted to clear refuse, had failed in discharging its duties.

    They said whenever it rained, the waste would be washed into the drainage, blocking gutters and causing flood.

    A resident, Mrs. Favour Bassey, condemned the deplorable condition of the streets, which were always littered with waste.

    She appealed to the government to come to their aid.

    “They do not pick up our waste and this has left the streets in a bad condition, blocking the drains and making everywhere filthy with a pungent smell.

    “Any time it rains, since the drains are blocked, the streets become flooded with waste floating everywhere. The government really needs to assist us,” Mrs. Bassey said.

    Mr. Richard Okafor, a civil servant, who lives in the area, said due to refuse heaps on the streets, epidemic was imminent.

    “The state of our environment is nothing to write home about. When the drains are blocked, the water becomes stagnant; it serves as habitat for mosquitoes, which cause malaria.

    “With refuse all over the streets, flies are attracted, which can lead to outbreak of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and food poisoning,” he said.

    A petty trader, Ms Chinonye Okeke, said despite refuse littering the streets, the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) still brought exorbitant bills every month.

    “I am not happy with the condition of my environment. Everywhere is irritating due to the waste littering the area. Although we pay our bills regularly, the company in charge hardly picks up the waste.

    “Before, I usually paid N2,000 in a month, but now I pay N3,000. The dues have increased and the services are reducing. The government should come to our aid,” she said.

    LAWMA could not be reached to comment on the situation.

    NAN reports that refuse heaps are seen in the nooks and crannies, leaving Akowonjo in a sorry state.

     

  • Refuse: Assembly orders PSP back to work

    •Visionscape disowned

    Lagos State House of Assembly has ordered the 20 local governments and 37 local council development areas (LCDAs) to call on the Private Sector Partnership (PSP) operators to go back to refuse packing.

    Speaker Mudashiru Obasa gave the directive yesterday at plenary.

    He directed the Clerk, Mr. Azeez Sanni, to invite the Commissioner for the Environment, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, to appear before the House on the matter next week.

    The directive followed a matter of urgent public importance raised by Gbolahan Yishawu (Eti-Osa 1), who complained of heaps of refuse all over the state.

    He said there were heaps of refuse on Lagos roads.

    Yishawu said: “Some refuse are taken to Epe and Ikorodu, but it is a bit far now, as 300 instead of 800 trucks now dispose refuse.

    “We used to dump the refuse at Olusosun, but the place was gutted by fire. We can give the place to companies.

    “The sanitary land fill in Epe is not being utilised and the transfer loading stations too are not working. The turnaround time of packing the refuse is not being utilised.

    “It is not all the PSP operators that are working. May be we can recall the PSP operators and reopen Olusosun. The land fill sites should be operated properly.”

    Obasa said the government does not know anything about Visionscape.

    He said there are three arms of the government – the legislature, executive and judiciary, adding that the government ought to have consulted the House on Visionscape before they started operation.

    “We insist that we don’t know anything about Visionscape because we were not consulted before they started work.

    “We once wrote the Commissioner for Finance, Akinyemi Ashade, not to pay Visionscape again, saying he would return any money he paid to them after our instruction, to the government’s coffers. We will go to that when the time comes, but we have to do the needful now.

    “We are calling on the 20 local governments and 37 LCDAs to meet the PSP operators, in order for them to go back to work. They should start paying them and make the residents to pay the operators. We have to avoid epidemic and be proactive,” Obasa said.

    He warned those stopping people from dumping refuse at the dumpsites to desist, saying he saw a lot of refuse trucks in a bad condition and that some of them have been abandoned.

    The Speaker said the House ought to have approved the new refuse disposal policy of the government before Visionscape started work.

    “We are inviting the commissioner for the Environment to report to us within one week. The Clerk should write the local governments and LCDAs to do the needful. The commissioner for the Environment should work on this and report to us in a week,” he said.

  • Refuse: CLI distributes 2m waste bags, 250,000 garbage bins

    About two million waste bags and 250,000 garbage bins have been distributed to Lagos residents free of charge to promote a healthier environment, Special Adviser to the governor on Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI), Adebola Shabi, has said.

    Shabi, who disclosed while addressing community, religious and market men and women leaders in Ifako-Ijaiye at the council’s Iju area office, said this is to press home the government’s zero tolerance to filth and indiscriminatel dumping of refuse in the state.

    The CLI has embarked on a statewide sensitisation campaign where government has been meeting with CDAs, CDCs, market women and religious leaders to collaborate with it in riding the state of refuse that threatened to soil its good image.

    Shabi urged Lagosians to join hands with the governments in its determination to keep the environment clean, adding that there’s no truth in the speculation that the government has stopped the PSP operators on waste disposal from working. According to him, government merely asked them to focus on commercial premises in the state.

    Visionscape, hee said, is a holistic company that has continued to work at delivering cutting edge services in waste disposal to the state.

    According to him, most of the old PSP operators could not operate because they have no operational vehicles. “These are the ones frustrating government’s effort,” Shabi said.

    He said census conducted by the CLI office showed that 16,000 commercial premises are in Lagos, while the total number of PSP operators are 350. “If these people distribute these premises at 400 apiece, they would still have left over. But the government in its magnanimity has even brought them back to continue their operations and they should continue to cart away domestic wastes,” Shabi said.

    He disclosed that the government  would not hesitate to withdraw the certificate of anyone, who refused to work, adding that about 140 fresh applicants have been screened by the government waiting to be deployed to work across the state.

    He urged residents to stop dumping refuse into drainage as well as patronising cart pushers, who according to him, end up dumping the collected refuse on the roads.

    “Research has shown that most of these refuse ultimately find their way into our waters and they end up contaminating the aqua life. Fishes found in our waters get contaminated because of the contaminants we dump into our rivers and we end up consuming them, ingesting into our system carcinogenic metals that predispose us to cancer,” Shabi said.

    He said waste materials such as plastic bottles and electronic wastes such as laptops, phones, batteries, etc, could be sorted separately and recycled as being done in developed nations of the world to promote employment and new skill for youths, who were hitherto unemployed.

    Addressing market women, Shabi said not only should all markets premises be kept clean, government has directed that all markets in the state be fumigated at least, once every quarter. He said LASEPA should certify all fumigants to be used by markets to ensure that they are not poisonous to human health.

    He urged Supervisory Councillors for Environment to appoint environment guards and sanction anyone found to be transgressing the state directives.

    Earlier, Ifako-Ijaiye Council Chairman Apostle Oloruntoba Oke commended the state Governor for his efforts at ensuring a cleaner environment. He was represented by the Council Secretary, Ayodeji Jeje, who described the sensitisation programme as a huge success. He added that the council is happy that “our people are being properly educated on how to bag their wastes and how to dispose them so that the do not constitute nuisance to the roads and other open spaces”.

    The sensitisation, he said, would further concretise what the council has been doing, adding that a clean environment promotes healthy living. He urged residents to exercise more patience with the government as all hands are on deck to rid the state of waste. He said “that is why the CLI is again here to ask them to partner the government by stopping those acts that promote filthiness of our roads and open spaces by those dumping refuse indiscriminately”.

  • Lagos, refuse and legacy

    Just as well, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions (VSS) and Waste Collection Operators (WCOs), the old PSP operators, have reached some detente on the refuse war.

    The Lagos prisoners of war (POWs), victims of the resultant environmental blight, can  now heave a sigh of relief, hoping the refuse siege would lift soon.

    Yet, after all said and done, Lagos is clearly dirtier than three years ago exactly today, when otherwise high-flying Governor Akinwunmi Ambode took over.

    Indeed, many a harsh critic would gloat — and not without basis — that Lagos is dirtier today, than during Governor Bola Tinubu’s second term (2003-2007); and the eight-year stretch of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (2007-2015).

    That is, on the refuse cum environmental wellness front, hopping back 12 clear years!

    Quite a looming legacy — and it’s not pretty!

    Yet, it is a rather stiff blight, for the governor has performed superlatively on other fronts.

    But no matter how derisive or biting the refuse criticism becomes, it wouldn’t matter if it is fixed.  That is what the governor should focus on.  That is what would determine his legacy.

    On the surface — and this resonates in the street — Ambode met a working system, and for whatever reasons, crippled it.  Proof: refuse heaps, the ugly signposts of old Lagos, circa 2001, are back with a vengeance!

    But looked at more closely, that conclusion doesn’t tell the complete story.

    Yes, the PSP system had a good hang on refuse collection.  But how sustainable was that system for a mega-city state, with fresh garbage from a thumping population, swollen daily by economic migrants nationwide?

    That made imperative the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) — in any case, in the opinion of the Ambode government.

    The CLI high point was the prospect of fresh capitalization, in waste clearing hardware: 600 brand new compactors and 900, 000 electronically tracked refuse bins, secure in the streets, being less prone to theft.

    The advent of the enabling law, the Environmental Management and Protection law (now being reworked by the Lagos House of Assembly, because of the fierce opposition to CLI), was to signal a new dawn.

    But it all ended a still-birth — or nearly so.  The old PSP veterans, now dubbed WCOs, resisted their perceived elbow, by VSS, with alleged conspiracy by the Ambode government, out of the household waste segment.

    VSS itself, overwhelmed as much by the fierce resistance as by the late delivery of its hardware — mainly the 600 brand new compactors — which were to be the market game-changers, looked far less nimble under pressure.

    Then, uproar from shocked citizens.  Suspected sabotage, as refuse piled up — in Malthus-speak — in geometrical proportions, while the refuse breakdown was still elementary in scope. Of course, the PSP also launched a legal challenge to VSS market entry.

    The Lagos garbage war had broken out, with rare savagery — and Akinwunmi Ambode was the villain-in-chief!

    The refuse-assaulted citizens — sight, smell, hearing and touch — were captured POWs, even as car tyres squelched heaps of spilled garbage from road medians; and stretched out skeins of sickening and smelly mats, on the road!

    But even as affronted Lagos groaned under refuse, some new order was taking shape, though with barely anyone in the mood to notice.

    From its mandate, VSS is charged with infrastructure upgrade, even as it competes with the WCOs on the refuse clearance front.

    These core refuse chores include constructing more transfer loading stations, recycling facilities, biomass plants, leachate and waste treatment schemes, waste to energy plants, dumpsites and land-filled remediation.

    That innovation points to the future of waste management in Lagos — an integrative process, which goal is to turn Lagos waste into wealth, doing that by best global practices.

    With the present confusion and resentment, that might sound as arcane as they come.  But it is the future of any modern city-state, intent on turning wastes into recycled  assets, creating jobs along the way, in the best tradition of government-private sector partnership.

    Still, between that future waste management utopia and the present grim challenges, there appears a gulf.

    So, what should the Lagos government do, now that the rains are coming, to avert city-wide piles of uncleared refuse, becoming some push for water-borne epidemics?

    Simple: accelerated clearance of refuse and faster turn-around of compactors, doing the rounds — some sort of refuse clearance emergency.

    While city-wide feedbacks tend to suggest reduced piles, the situation is still far from what it was before the system broke down.

    But that is little surprise.  For starters, the WCOs are not as near-equipped, in sound compactors, as they should have been, which in the first instance, necessitated the CLI reforms.

    Then, VSS’ anticipated new compactors are arriving in bits.  Worse for capitalist morale: WCOs are infringing on VSS’ former household waste monopoly, in the spirit of the new waste entente.

    Still, it is a thing to cheer that the government would appear getting a hang, once again, on the refuse situation.  What to do now is fasten, by whatever means necessary, the turn-around time.

    But something must be done — and done urgently: get rid of illegal dumpsites, particularly on medians, roundabouts and road junctions.  These sites flared during  the VSS-WCO turf war.

    Now that there have been some operational agreements, the government should ensure they vanish, even if it means drafting security agencies, on a 24-hour surveillance, to arrest those responsible for these dumps.

    Still, a lasting lesson from the refuse crisis: never take anything for granted; for the best systems often collapse with the least but routine neglects.

    The strength of Lagos State, since 1999, has been its continuity — laudable and effective continuity, of winning policies, of which waste management was only a part.  But see what havoc CLI’s sudden shock has caused!

    Henceforth, Governor Ambode would do well to secure stakeholders’ consensus — or near so — before moving in to implement any policy, no matter how good on paper.  This refuse fiasco teaches that stiff lesson.

    As for political adversaries, hoping to cash in on Ambode’s refuse slip for negative electioneering pitch, all is fair in war!

    Still, the governor, like 2nd Republic Alhaji Lateef Jakande, and immediate predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, before him, would appear to have done enough to earn re-election.

    Even, after the first two years, Governor Bola Tinubu, who like the Biblical King David fought all the battles to establish the Lagos “kingdom”, was already showing enough fox-trot, to secure a second term. The refuse reforms, aside from massive infrastructure upgrade, topped in his golden score card.

    For Ambode, therefore, failure on the refuse front is a dire legacy stain.  It is absolutely no option!

  • Refuse: Assembly summons three commissioners, others

    •Public hearing on LUC on Tuesday

    The Lagos State House of Assembly at plenary yesterday summoned three commissoners, their respective Permanent Secretaries and the state Accountant-General to come and brief the House on all issues surrounding the handing over of the state environmental matters to Visionscape.

    Adeniji Kazeem (Justice and Attorney-General),  Akinyemi Ashade (Finance), Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti (Environment) andAbimbola Umar, the Accountant-General were summoned .

    The House also directed Ashade and Umar to henceforth stop further payment to Visionscape pending the outcome of its investigation.

    The House constituted an eight-man Ad-Hoc Committee to investigate the matter.

    The Committee which is headed by Bayo Oshinowo has other members as Oluyinka Ogundimu, Funmilayo Tejuoso, Abiodun Tobun, Saka Fafunmi, Mosbood Oshun, Gbolahan Yishawu and Rasheed Makinde.

    The resolution followed a motion moved Under Matters of Urgent Public Importance, by Olanrewaju Ogunyemi, who disclosed that refuse has taken over Lagos, noting that there is the need to avert serious epidemic in the state.

    “It is known by everybody that refuse is now taking over the streets of Lagos. It is an eyesore that brings shame to the state,” Ogunyemi noted.

    He argued further that the company in charge of collection and disposal of waste, Visionscape has failed to meet up in line with the vision provided in the new law passed to tackle issues surrounding refuse.

    Speaker Mudashiru Obasa said: “the consolidated law on the environment which the House passed was in order but it needs to be pointed out that a provision for concession included in the law was not complied with. The government ought to revert to the House before bringing in Visionscape.

    Obasa said: “We don’t know Visionscape, so we can only invite those that we know – those that the law recognises.”

    Bisi Yusuff said: “My colleagues, we need to unravel those behind Visionscape. The issue of inappropriate management of waste will have adverse effects on our health especially as it relates to Lassa fever.”

    Raheem Adams opined that the House should critically examine the issue to determine if there is need to give back the management of the waste to PSP operators.

    Abiodun Tobun stated that, “the handing over of waste management in the state is retrogressive. We must be at alert and do what is expected of us as representatives of the people.”

    Deputy Majority Leader Olumuyiwa Jimoh revealed that there were comments on social media condemning the amount of money Visionscape was being paid by the government, adding that such money was not appropriated in the budget.

    Meanwhile the House took the second reading of the new bill to review the Land Use Charge which has generated protest from Lagosians.

    It set up an ad-hoc committee to handle the review and directed it to hold a public hearing on the bill next week Tuesday.

    The ad-hoc committee is chaired by Bayo Osinowo. Members are Funmilayo Tejuoso, Chairman, Committee on Judiciary  Oluyinka Ogundimu, Chairman, Ad-Hoc Committee on Finance Tunde Braimoh, Chairman, Ad-Hoc Committee on Information Jude Idimogun and Hakeem Shokunle.

  • Refuse: Court gives govt, PSP 14 days to settle

    A Lagos High Court yesterday gave the  state government and the incorporated trustees of Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWMN) two weeks to perfect their terms  of settlement.

    Justice Taofiquat Oyekan-Abdullahi directed them to meet on Saturday as well as March 14 and 16 to resolve  issues concerning  domestic waste management in the state.

    She noted that though  progress had been made, there was a need to get the litigants on the same page for a resolution.

    The judge ordered the parties to ensure that their terms of settlement is in the court’s file by March 20.

    The agreement could then be adopted as the court’s verdict on March 22.

    The AWMN otherwise known as Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators, filed the suit last year to stop the government from preventing its members from managing domestic waste.

    It claimed that the government intended to “take their job and give it to a foreign company,  Visionscape Sanitation Solutions (VSS) Ltd.”

    The co-respondents in  the suit are the Commissioner for Environment, the Attorney-General/Commissioner for Justice, Visionscape Group, VSS and ABC Sanitation Solutions Ltd.

    But the government, through its counsel S. A. Quadri, said, among others, that the claimants were former contractors whose contract had expired.

    It insisted that the claimants had no subsisting agreement to work with it.

    Last year, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode initiated the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) in furtherance of the Environmental Management Protection Law.

    At the resumed hearing of the case yesterday, the claimant’s counsel, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, said the parties ad been meeting to settle the case, but there were pending issues.

    Adegboruwa said the PSP operators were interested in keeping the state clean, but on certain terms and conditions.

    According to him, the bone of contention is domestic waste. He blamed ‘fifth columnists’ for the delay in reaching an agreement.

    Adegboruwa said: “The waste of people in residential areas – because of the volume and the number of the members – is critical to our settlement.

    “We have been in discussion with the Attorney-General. We believe that some fifth columnists are responsible for the delay of this settlement.

    “We believe that government will be sincere in addressing the fundamental issues that relate to domestic waste.

    “We appeal to our members, especially the PSP, to continue to keep the work of cleaning Lagos, picking waste and disposing them and not allow any sabotage of the CLI,” he said.

    Adegboruwa said if government had given the PSP operators the same support accorded Visionscape in form of soft loans and trucks, waste would disappear from the state.

    “We felt frustrated that we have been doing the job meritoriously for years and now, a foreigner has come, with the intention that we are not capable.”

  • Saboteurs behind Lagos refuse, says Cleaner Lagos

    Saboteurs behind Lagos refuse, says Cleaner Lagos

    Officials of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI)  have raised the alarm over  attempts by those they referred to as saboteurs to frustrate  the state’s  new waste management policy.

    They  said the saboteurs were determined to kill all efforts to make Lagos  cleaner and healthier.

    A senior CLI, who preferred anonymity said it was unfortunate that those who felt the new arrangement would affect them adversely were working hard to sabotage it by all means, including deliberate dumping of large volume of waste in public places.

    The official said: “Take for instance, the picture of heaps of refuse under the Idumagbo Pedestrian Bridge that was published today (yesterday) in a national daily. The refuse at that spot was evacuated just overnight and the team finished by 3am today (Sunday) and by 3am, the heap of refuse was back there, including a fully loaded LAWMA big refuse container that was not there previously.

    “As I am talking to you, our officials have returned to the same spot to clear everything. The Commissioner for the Environment was also there to see things for himself and he has asked the Private Sector Participant (PSP) operator that dropped the container belonging to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) on the spot to remove it immediately.

    “That has been the challenge. When our officials clear the heaps of refuse from a spot, before one could say Jack Robinson, the heaps were back on the same spot cleared by our officials and this really has to stop because a cleaner Lagos is in our collective interest,” he said.

    The new policy encapsulated in the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) was introduced to address the challenges in the sector, and as well revolutionise waste management in the state in line with international best practices.

    A source said the permutation of those behind the sabotage was that if they kept dumping tonnes of refuse in public places, they would achieve the twin objective of distracting CLI officials from paying adequate attention to other places while projecting the initiative, which is targeted at a comprehensive turnaround of Lagos to become one of the cleanest cities in the world, as a failure.

    Another reliable source said the situation had also been compounded by members of the public who indiscriminately dump their waste in public places and not the designated spots, saying that such was also a challenge.

    Also, in a recent video that went viral on social media, an official of Visionscape Sanitation Solutions, Mr John Olawale Joseph, had lamented how people were dumping refuse on the same spots in public places, thus frustrating the efforts to rid the state of filth.

    Joseph, who is Visionscape’s Area Manager for Lagos Island West, alleged that heaps of refuse sometimes appear overnight in places already cleared by environmental officials, saying that the deliberate sabotage of the project called for concern.

  • 28 prosecuted for open defecation, dumping of refuse

    Twenty-eight persons have been arraigned at a mobile court in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, for open defecation and indiscriminate dumping of refuse.

    Two, who are minors, were, however, discharged and acquitted. Others were sentenced to fines ranging from N2,000 to N4,000.

    The Magistrate, Modupe Afeniforo, hoped that the sentence would act as a deterrent to others.

    Environment Commissioner Chief Bisi Kolawole said the government would implement environmental and sanitation laws to eradicate open defecation and indiscriminate dumping of refuse.

    Warning that the administration would begin a continuous house to house monitoring exercise to ensure compliance with the policy of having at least one toilet in every house, the commissioner stressed that culprits would be punished.

  • Refuse, illegal refining threaten transmission facility in Lagos

    Refuse, illegal refining threaten transmission facility in Lagos

    A transmission tower’s integrity in Lagos is being threatened as miscreants have turned its location to a dump site, illegal refining and burning of rubbish, it was learnt.

    The tower, located in Surulere area of Lagos, according to the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, is being threatened by the nefarious activities going on under it.

    Such activities, according to the TCN chief, compromise the integrity of towers, adding that the maintenance team of the company would not be able to access the facility for repairs in the event of a problem.

    “Should the tower also collapse as a result of the compromise, the entire Apapa and environs would be out of power supply,” he said.

    He continued:”Therefore, it is imperative I came to see things, discuss and collaborate with Lagos State Government to find a solution to the problem, and permanently stop the nefarious activities going on under the tower,” he added.

    Mohammed further said: “People dump and burn refuse and other materials under the tower and as you can see, there is oil bunkering and illegal refining here. These activities definitely will compromise the integrity of the tower. If the tower is comprised and it collapses, the entire Apapa and environs will be out of power supply.

    “This tower supports the capacity from Ajah through the 330kv circuit line to Alagbon. If it collapses, supply to these areas will be jeopardised. Also, if there is a problem with the tower, it will be difficult for the maintenance team to access it. It is a big problem for these areas.

    “I will discuss with the Lagos State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources. We are working closely with the Lagos State Government. We will ask the Energy Commissioner to ensure that the Commissioner for Environment clear this place and ensure it is permanently maintained away from the miscreants and refuse dump.

    “The clearing will be immediately because we are collaborating with the Lagos State Government. Through this collaboration, we are working to put significant transmission capacity between Lagos and Ogun states and ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.”

    The TCN chief also said the transmission arm of the power supply value chain is not the weakest link as some people make power consumers believe, adding that transmission capacity has been substantially increased and, the transmission arm is ahead of other arms of the supply chain. “We are increasing our capacity across the country because the government is supporting us

    “This government has been putting money into transmission since it came on board. Money that has been put by this government into transmission has never been put into transmission in the history of Nigeria.

    “We have also secured a lot of funding from multilateral donors, backed by the Ministries of Power, Works and Housing and Finance, and this is being channeled into transmission. To me, funding is not so much a big issue to transmission now because we have got the support of the government.

    “Whoever says TCN is the weakest link in the power supply value chain is ignorant of the sector. Transmission is not the weakest link in the chain. Our capacity currently is higher than all the other arms of the industry. We also have plans to expand the capacity of the transmission more than any other arm of the sector. So, we are always ahead of them and will continue to be ahead of them,”he said.