Residents across Lagos State have watched garbage pile up in streets, markets, medians and drainage channels for five months. Many say they’ve kept paying for a service they aren’t getting. Davidson Iriekpen writes that the waste-management crisis has damaged the image of a city long sold to investors and tourists as a clean, well-connected gateway to West Africa.
The mess isn’t confined to one corner of the state. Refuse is visible in Mushin, Ebute Metta, Agege, Egbeda, Idimu, Ojuelegba, Mile 2, Orile, Apapa, Okokomaiko, Ajah, parts of Lekki, Lawanson, Ikeja, Bariga, Surulere, Agegunle, Boundary, Ojo, Ikorodu, Festac Town, Satellite Town, Ikotun, Oshodi, Iyana-Iba, Alaba, Isolo and Abule Egba. Decomposing waste gives off offensive odours. In some places, it spills onto roads and clogs drainage channels, blocking motorists, pedestrians and businesses while exposing residents to potential health risks.
Who Pays, and For What
The system rests on a partnership between the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and accredited Private Sector Participants (PSPs). LAWMA handles policy and supervision. Private operators collect household and commercial waste in assigned districts and local government areas. They’re expected to collect from residential properties at least once a week, while residents and property owners pay monthly service charges.
That’s the arrangement on paper. Residents in several parts of the city say operators have missed collections for weeks or months, despite payment.
Operators point to rising diesel costs, vehicle maintenance and long distances to disposal sites. State authorities have acknowledged operational bottlenecks, underperforming operators and truck shortages. Many operators’ evacuation trucks are in poor condition and prone to frequent breakdowns, the article says. It also says Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources Tokunbo Wahab and LAWMA are failing to monitor PSP operators properly. Lagos generates between 13,000 and 15,000 tonnes of municipal waste daily, according to Wahab.
The Health Risks Residents Carry
Accumulated refuse breeds rats, flies, cockroaches and mosquitoes, which can contribute to the spread of malaria, cholera and typhoid. Sharp objects and contaminated materials can cause injuries and infections. Rain can wash waste into rivers, wells and other water sources, while chemicals from refuse can contaminate soil. Open burning releases smoke and pollutants that can aggravate respiratory conditions.
Official Response
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu recently directed an immediate scale-up of waste evacuation. He said LAWMA, the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) and the Ministry of Environment were working around the clock. “We have deployed extra trucks and personnel to clear the backlogs across all affected neighbourhoods. You should already see progress on the streets, and we will not stop until our city is completely clean again,” Sanwo-Olu said. He urged residents to dispose of waste properly and avoid dumping in drainage channels or on roads. The article says conditions appeared unchanged.
The government has sought to clear refuse black spots and reintroduced monthly sanitation exercises. But residents facing overflowing bins may struggle to distinguish a temporary operational problem from a systemic failure.
Wahab responded to criticism of the state’s waste-management and flood-control measures from Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the 2027 governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). He acknowledged that residents hadn’t received satisfactory waste-collection services but disputed the claim that the government’s response was limited to emergency evacuation. Delays at disposal facilities, he said, can slow truck turnaround, disrupt collection schedules and leave refuse piling up in neighbourhoods.
Wahab said Lagos was pursuing a wider restructuring: modern transfer loading stations, material recovery facilities, recycling, composting and the Epe waste-to-energy project. The state is also tightening contractor monitoring through property enumeration, geocoded service locations, GPS tracking, weighbridge measurements, collection records and recovery data. Underperforming operators face sanctions or termination, he said.
An Old Problem Returns
The current conditions revive memories of the 2015–2019 waste crisis, when major roads, markets and drainage channels became dumping grounds. That period ended seven years ago. Then Governor Akinwunmi Ambode brought in Visionscape in 2017, nine years ago, to modernise collection and evacuation across the state. The arrangement got caught up in the politics of waste management. Visionscape struggled to meet expectations, refuse stayed piled up, and LAWMA personnel grew unhappy after their role was significantly reduced. Residents faced an increasingly filthy city.
The article argues that the problem isn’t only the refuse already on the streets, but the system that lets it stay there. Waste collection in a city of Lagos’ size and ambitions, it says, must be routine, predictable and accountable—not a crisis response. Other densely populated cities have shown that population alone doesn’t make effective waste management impossible. Financing, operator monitoring, infrastructure maintenance and consequences for contractors who fail to deliver all matter.
It calls for transparent monitoring and adequate financing, contracts tied to measurable performance, and accountability for operators paid to provide services. Reasonable service charges linked to visible improvements could help sustain the system, while private investment and external partnerships could support larger infrastructure projects.
Why This Matters:
Uncollected garbage isn’t just an eyesore. It’s a public health problem that falls hardest on residents who can’t move away from clogged drains, contaminated water and disease-carrying pests. People pay monthly charges for a service they say isn’t being delivered, raising basic questions about who answers when a paid-for public service fails. The state’s own commissioner concedes services have been unsatisfactory, yet the article reports that supervision of operators has been weak and conditions appeared unchanged. The earlier 2015–2019 crisis shows how outsourcing without strong oversight can repeat the same failures. Whether GPS tracking, weighbridge records and the threat of termination actually change contractor behavior will determine whether Lagos gets a routine service or another cycle of emergency cleanups.