LAGOS State needs to look deeply into its environmental practices. Although the state government has debunked a viral report on social media that claimed that the state had re-introduced the monthly environmental sanitation in addition to imposing a restriction of movement on citizens during the exercise, the stinking environmental mess in many parts of the state is too glaring. Tellingly, the very activity being repudiated could be a necessity for the state to tackle its menace of dirtiness.
For a metropolis that seeks to appropriate the label of being a “smart city,” the state government needs to take a holistic approach to its decade-long waste management challenges and institute a credible means of ensuring collective sanitation and hygiene among all citizens.
The State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, explained that what Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu meant “was that the state will start a weekly community-based sensitisation and awareness exercise that will involve all residents.”
He added, “The governor said the state government officials will lead from the front every week by going round to join residents in cleaning their environment in a voluntary manner while preaching the message.” Beyond declarative intentions, there is a need for the government to take a multisectoral look at the perennial waste problems in the commercial nerve centre of the country.
The cancellation of the programme is in line with a Court of Appeal judgement that barred Lagos from restricting the movement of citizens during the then-monthly environmental sanitation exercise.
But Lagos has been buffeted by sanitation issues. Credit to ex-governor Babatunde Fashola (2007-2019) whose pragmatic policies transformed Lagos into a clean place. His successor, Akinwunmi Ambode unwisely discarded Fashola’s ethos, returning Lagos to dirtiness. Under Sanwo-Olu, dirt litters most points in the state.
A 2022 estimate quoted by the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners indicates that Lagos produces between 13,000 and 15,000 metric tonnes of waste equivalent to about 490 trailer loads daily, with each resident generating an average of 1.2kg/day. This is projected to rise to 1.4kg in the next 15 years.
Aside from the lack of effective management and inadequate infrastructure, the problem posed by the huge volume of waste generated daily in Lagos is further amplified by bad roads and poor urban planning. These make it difficult for collection trucks to reach inner several areas. With no efficient means of waste disposal, stinking refuse mounts.
This growing crisis has not only constituted a threat to the environment but also to the health of citizens. A 2016 World Bank report noted that solid waste management was responsible for about 5.0 per cent of global emissions. The WHO estimated that “one in four of total global deaths are linked to environmental conditions.”
Despite the establishment of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation to “ensure the overall cleanliness of the environment in the state” and “educate the entire populace of the state on matters related to environmental sanitation,” many citizens have developed cavalier attitudes towards sanitation. They empty waste into water channels, operate in dirty markets, litter the streets, clog gutters with plastic wastes, and defecate openly.
In heavily populated Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, and Dhaka, governments in partnership with the private sector have invested in the provision of adequate incinerators and landfills, changes in shopping and disposal culture, and modifications of recycling laws, which prohibit street littering. Lagos can adopt these measures and ensure that a regular sanitation exercise is observed.
Lagos citizens – from young ages –need to relearn and unlearn to adopt a culture of sanitation with a strong emphasis on environmental hygiene. There should be stricter laws that place penalties for environmental infractions. Markets or residential homes that pollute the environment with waste should be made to pay fines or engage in compulsory community services to remediate the environment.
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