Now that the rains are fully here, sometimes pouring in buckets, the Lagos State government’s reminder of efficient waste disposal could not have come at a better time. The reminder was prompted by the just-concluded Sallah festivities. With the festival approaching last week with the attendant preparatory activities, the State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tokunbo Wahab, said:
“As we prepare for the Sallah Festivities, which will come up in a few days, a lot of waste will be generated…We urge all residents to maintain a clean and hygienic environment, especially around homes, markets and worship centres. All generated wastes should be sorted, bagged, and handed over to the approved Private Sector Participation operators across all the wards in the state.”
“Do not patronise illegal waste collectors or cart pushers. That is what the provisions of the law state,” Mr. Wahab admonished the Lagos residents. We will be wrong to think the pressing trigger was only a festival event-specific. Not in a state that generates an average of 13, 000 tonnes of waste daily, 870, 000 tonnes of plastic waste yearly. Altogether, the waste generated yearly in the state is 5.46 million.
Wahab has long thrown his cap in the ring to do battle with all manner of people who have exhibited brazen disregard for environmental laws and building regulations. Warning residents against dumping refuse or solid waste in drains, medians or setbacks, he said at his Press conference last week that the government would not hesitate in climbing down on residents who defied and disobeyed environmental laws: “Illegal dumping in drains and public spaces causes flash flooding, endangers public health and defaces our city. It is strictly prohibited and under active surveillance. Desist from dumping building materials in the drains or on the roads during the construction process. All such contravening structures will be sealed up, and the owners prosecuted.”
Lagos State Waste Management Board (LAWMA) is in partnership with the private sector referred to by Wahab as Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators. There are 428 such operators, plying 40 routes, two to three times daily. This cannot be surprising given the population of Lagos. Greater Metropolitan Lagos alone has been put at 21 million inhabitants.
Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, the managing director of LAWMA, had said to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the PSP operators deploy 102 compactor trucks for waste evacuation, which covered cleaning out of coastlines, lagoons and drainage channels. The compactors are leased to the PSP operators and their operations are subsidised by the government monthly in view of the state of the economy. The government is acquiring more compactors, hopefully before long.
Wahab said every household and business should patronise the government assigned PSP operator for proper waste collection, adding: “Timely payment of waste bill supports the system and ensures consistent service. Those who generate waste must take responsibility for its proper disposal. Every resident must realise that all residents or tenement should pay their waste bills to keep the PSP operators in business.”
It is elating and laudable that the Lagos State Government is applying itself to the unenviable tasks of waste disposal within the state and with the burgeoning population to boot! It has improved on the work plan and efforts of the state’s old waste disposal template. In 1981 and 1982, the Lagos State Waste Disposal Board under the T. A. Mumuni as chairman, collected 400,000 tonnes of refuse yearly with a fleet of 157 vehicles. At the time, it was record job; the waste load was mind-rending, given the population of Lagos at the period, 43 years ago. The board also boasted of 21 mechanical shovels and about 2,000 movable dustbins. At the time, refuse collection was in the night so as not to hinder free flow of traffic. Several collections centres were established in every major street with the cooperation of landlord associations. The staff strength in the employment of the board was 1,800 men.
Waste disposal in our major cities has been a herculean task. Waste is dumbed anyhow and, in any place, a reflection of the inner state, that is, the state of spiritual maturity of a people. The technological wonders of these times are coming to rescue the populace from ugliness. Technology has helped in the recycling of 30 per cent of the waste in Lagos to reduce the load of it going to landfills.
According to Free Recycle Limited, 870, 000 tonnes of plastic waste are generated yearly. To demonstrate how crucial efficient waste disposal is in our lives, think of underground water during the rainy season as we have now in places where garbage is not properly kept and treated. It was Chief Bisi Akande who first adverted the minds of Nigerians to the issue this time in 1992. And one could not but ask: ‘How safe is the water you drink? It is a question worth asking the next time you are about to have a glass of water. For you may discover that you have a glass of slow-killing poison in your hands.
Chief Bisi Akande raised the alarm when he was chairman of Ibadan South West Local Government. In his characteristic bluntness, he told residents near the refuse dump on Ring Road that large concentrations of nitrates had been found in the soil near their homes and, in their own interest, they should close all deep wells from where many obtained drinking water. The trouble was the refuse dump. Normally, good health regulations forbid the siting of refuse dumps within three kilometres radius of residential abode. Where the dump came first, no one is expected to live within three kilometres of it. Dumps contain all sorts of rubbish from metals and plastics to waste food. As the rubbish degenerates, rain and other forms of ground water take the chemical chips underground water from which many Nigerians obtain drinking water.
Nitrates, the pollutants cited in the Ibadan experience, may come from vegetable and plant waste or from the preservatives contained in convenience fast food, according to scientists. In the human body, these chemicals may be transformed into nitrosamines which cause cancer, genetic and birth defects. But this will not be the only danger over the Ring Road residents for dumps also contain metallic rubbish some of which are converted by microbes to water -soluble forms and thereafter leached into the underground system.
The heavier these metals are the more dangerous the leachates. The parade is frightening: Aluminium leachate from aluminium cooking pots or cans; mercury; cadmium; lead etc. Heavy metals collect in tissues and organs for which they have affinity and damage them in the long run, causing death. At risk especially are the liver, kidney and the brain.
I want to believe that the fate of Ring Road must have changed for the better since Chief Akande raised the alarm in 1992. The taps should be running by now. The Chief himself had gone on to be the Governor of Osun State since then. At the time, the same poisoning that afflicted Ring Road, Ibadan, was the unsuspected problem where in Lagos Metropolis a dump sat comfortably between two residential blocks on the Isolo-Egbe Road. Indeed, the infringement was worse in Lagos Metropolis. Another area was the Ijesha bus-stop on the Apapa-Oworonshoki Expressway.
As this column pointed out at the time: “There is yet another right at the gates of Gbagada General Hospital. There is also the Delphin residential Estate scheme dump.” Yet as far back as 20 June, 1988, The Guardian had raised an alarm over the Federal Ministry of Works discovery that the underground water from which many Lagos families obtained their drinking water in these areas had become poisoned.
Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti who later became the Minister of Health was to admit and warn that previously unknown diseases had become big-time killers. This was echoed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that said Third World Countries should be wary of the Western civilisation diseases notably heart ailments killing a large number of Nigerians. Water samples were taken from wells and boreholes near even disused rubbish dump at Aina Street, Lawanson; Aborisade Street and Idi-Araba for analysis.
The study revealed that the garbage dumps somehow did not have too serious effect on the level of contamination of the well waters in the area, but that it did not obviate the necessity to keep the rules of three kilometres away from rubbish sites.
I have gone this far to demonstrate why Governor Sanwo-Olu and his Commissioner, Tokunbo Wahab, deserve the backing in their unremitted drive to enforce Lagos environmental laws and building regulations to ensure that the NIMET forecast of flooding which is hanging like the sword of Damocles on 32 states out of 36 plus Abuja does not catch Lagos napping. The Kogi unfortunate experience has demonstrated that the elements are serious if you stand in their way. The waterways must be free of what they in their fury will regard as encumbrances on their path.
