Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, publicly apologized to residents on Arise TV, admitting that waste collection over the past few months has been inadequate. He acknowledged that refuse evacuation has been "very bad" for the last three to four months, prompting widespread frustration among Lagosians.
Apology and admission of failure
Speaking on The Morning Show on Arise TV, Wahab said: "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. I won’t play the ostrich by not admitting we had a challenge. Are we fixing it? Yes."
The apology follows weeks of complaints from residents over heaps of uncollected waste on roads, street corners, and drainage channels across the city. Many Lagosians took to social media to express frustration over delays, with some reporting refuse left unattended for weeks.
Shift to circular waste economy
Wahab explained that Lagos is moving away from the traditional linear waste system of collect-and-dump toward a circular waste economy. He noted that major landfill sites like Olusosun and Solous were originally on the outskirts but are now surrounded by urban development, making the old model 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," Wahab 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."
Waste-to-energy investments
As part of the transition, the state is investing in waste-to-energy projects. A biodigester facility at the Ecocircuit Centre already converts food waste into energy. Additionally, the government is developing a larger waste-to-energy plant expected to process approximately 4,250 tonnes of waste daily.
Governor orders round-the-clock evacuation
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has ordered round-the-clock waste evacuation across the state, directing sanitation agencies to clear refuse heaps from roads and public spaces. The renewed efforts come months after the Lagos State Government reinstated the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in April, ending a nearly 10-year suspension that began in November 2016 following a court ruling.
State officials believe the combination of improved waste evacuation, environmental sanitation, and modern waste processing facilities will help address the city's growing waste management challenges in the coming years.
