The Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources has revealed that the state is making significant progress in tackling open defecation, with 150 individuals arrested for the offence in 2025, adding that the arrests included squatters displaced from pedestrian bridges, which were subsequently cleaned and restored.
The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, revealed this on Sunday at the 2026 Ministerial Press Briefing, where he reeled out the achievements of the ministry in the last one year to commemorate the 7th year anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
He said that to further combat the open defecation scourge in the state, the Ministry is currently building 20 Toilet facility consisting of 200 Toilet Unit and 40 Bathrooms with urinals for male.

The facility, which he said is about 70% completed, include provisions for People with Disability (PWD) and will be solar powered with an on-site treatment plant.
According to him, “The Lagos State Government currently has over 1710 public toilets across parks, markets and residential areas in 20 LGAs and 37 LCDA.”
He further disclosed that the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) in 2025, served 192 Environmental Abatement Notices and arrested 6,789 individuals for unlawful highway crossing and failure to use pedestrian bridges, while another 3,786 persons, including illegal traders, street hawkers, environmental offenders, and cart pushers, were apprehended during enforcement operations.

He added that all those arrested were prosecuted in line with the Lagos State Environmental Law.
He noted that beyond enforcement, the ministry held 170 stakeholder meetings with communities to address environmental infractions and improve public compliance with sanitation regulations.
Similarly, he disclosed that in an attempt to ensure that Lagos State remains a flood free city, from Year 2025 till date, a total number of 18 Primary Channels with approximately 76km length were approved and executed under maintenance Dredging of Primary Channels programme.

The Drainage Enforcement and Compliance
Department has also identified 2,218 contravening structures in various communities in the state and successfully removed 1544 of these contravening structures from drainage alignment with a success rate calculated to 70%.
He said: “In the last one year, the present administration has awarded the construction of over 100km of secondary collector drain and 30km of primary channels between April 2025 and April 2026. There are also on-going drainage channels at various levels of completion.”
The Commissioner further revealed that the return of the statewide observance of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise remains the key highlight of the administration’s one year scorecard, stressing that without a clean environment living becomes a challenge.

He said: “Despite futile attempts by naysayers to discredit the return, the massive participation and enthusiasm of residents to the observance of the April edition which held on the last Saturday between the hours of 6.30 am to 8.30am throughout the nooks and crannies of the State was very heartwarming with the First Family represented by the First Lady taking the lead alongside many other Cabinet members joining in cleaning their localities.
“All Local Government and Local Council Development Area Chairmen also participated massively and supported by deploying compactor trucks to cart away refuse just like many privately owned companies supported by donating trucks to join the carting of refuse generated during the clean-up exercise.”
He reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to turning waste management into an economic opportunity, noting that Lagos generates over 13,000 metric tonnes of refuse daily and is steadily moving away from the traditional “collect and dump” approach towards a sustainable zero-waste economy.

He called on residents to turn out for the next sanitation exercise slated for May 30, saying it would offer an opportunity to clean the environment following the Eid celebrations.
He added that during the period under review, Lagos State got ranked as the top-performing State in Nigeria for Climate Governance for the second year running.
Giving update on the enforcement of the total ban on the distribution, sales and usage of Styrofoam, Wahab said that the ministry confiscated about 5 million worth of banned Styrofoam and SUPs from warehouses and malls, while removing a total of 137,530.94 kg of PET (plastic) from the environment in 2025.

“The recycling initiative of the department recorded a positive trend based on data obtained from collection centers indicating a significant improvement in waste recovery efforts. Total Recyclables Collected for the year is 2025 185,850.72 kg,” he said.
He said: “As part of the Ministry’s continuous wetland monitoring and compliance activities, some developers were found carrying out unauthorized reclamation and illegal construction on wetland areas and were subsequently served statutory notices, given 48 hours to comply.
“Where compliance was not achieved, enforcement actions were carried out, leading to the sealing of nine (9) facilities involved in illegal wetland encroachment across Ogombo, Lekki Phase II, Itoikin-Epe axis, and Majidun, Ikorodu, thereby preventing further degradation of environmentally sensitive wetland ecosystems.”

The commissioner, however, noted that as part of the tradition of planting trees on the annual designated day for Tree planting and on other ceremonial day, the ministry recorded a total of 16, 966 trees planted while 13,572 trees were successfully established. “These trees are spread all over the five Divisions of Lagos State across public and private schools, road setbacks, and private and government residential estates and some public facilities. Breakdown shows 2779 were planted in Ikeja, 490 in Badagry, 1,601 in Ikorodu, 3,625 in Lagos Island and 8,471 in Epe,” he added.