By James Adamu
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has declared what he called a “small state of emergency” on waste management, as his administration moves to tackle the refuse backlog and indiscriminate dumping that have plagued the state in recent weeks.
The governor announced the measure on Thursday while inspecting the Olusosun landfill in Ojota, where he was joined by Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat, Environment and Water Resources Commissioner Tokunbo Wahab and other top officials.
Sanwo-Olu said the visit was meant to confront the reality of the crisis rather than manage appearances, describing the scene at Olusosun as a picture of the larger problem.
“This is a typical sight of the challenge. We are here to see what the problem is and to clearly declare a small state of emergency so that we can get out of this very unpleasant situation,” he said.
The governor outlined a response structure built around immediate, medium and long-term fixes, with the goal of clearing the current backlog before the rainy season intensifies pressure on disposal sites.
Under the plan, two new Transfer Loading Stations, each with a capacity of 2,400 metric tonnes, are being built at Olusosun and Solu 3 in Alimosho Local Government Area in partnership with development partner Zoomlion.
Waste will be compacted at these stations before being moved to two Material Recovery Sites under development at Oke Osho in Epe and Erikitte in Badagry. Each transfer station is designed to handle roughly 500 trucks daily.
“With the transfer loading stations, waste will be compacted and eventually taken to a material recovery site where it will be further sorted and broken into other uses,” Sanwo-Olu said.
He said the facilities should begin to take physical shape before year-end, with full operations expected between the first and second quarters of 2027.
To ease pressure in the interim, the government will raise Olusosun’s daily intake from between 250 and 350 trucks to between 350 and 450 by expanding its tipping points from two or three to four or five.
Road stabilisation at Solu 3 is already underway, with grading expected to be finished in two to three weeks so waste reception can continue. Similar work is planned for Iwulepe in Ikorodu and Oke Osho in Epe.
The governor expressed optimism that within six weeks, four dump sites — Olusosun, Solu 3, Iwulepe and Oke Osho — would be active, with Erikitte in Badagry becoming the fifth.
He said the arrangement would cut truck turnaround time from as long as 12 hours to just a few hours by bringing disposal points closer to collection areas.
On the collection side, Sanwo-Olu disclosed that 160 new compactor trucks had been ordered and would begin shipping soon. Landfill compactors for on-site processing are also being procured, while Zoomlion and Private Sector Participants (PSPs) are expected to add more vehicles to their fleets.
The government, he added, will work with PSPs on financing models that allow them to expand without running into financial difficulty.
Sanwo-Olu also threw his weight behind a membership audit of PSP operators, noting that only about 400 of the nearly 800 registered operators are currently effective.
“We don’t want to have 800 PSPs when it is actually only 400 that are effective,” he said, adding that the clean-up would open the door for new investors.
The governor used the occasion to appeal to residents and property owners to pay for waste collection, warning that the system cannot improve if users refuse to pay.
“Lagosians in particular, we just want service. We don’t want to pay for this service. I think this era has to stop. It’s so unfair to see people rendering service and people are not paying them,” he said.
He said the monthly sanitation exercise introduced four months ago and ongoing advocacy efforts would be better coordinated as part of a wider push on waste generation, disposal and recycling.
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