₦airaland Forum

Tinubu intervenes in latest waste management crisis in Lagos

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National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen. Bola Tinubu, says the lingering issue of waste management in Lagos State will soon be resolved. Tinubu gave the assurance on Friday in Lagos during a meeting with the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAM), otherwise known as PSP. He said that there was the need to resolve the issue because of the immense contributions of the PSP operators to waste management in the state. Tinubu assured that he would reconcile all the stakeholders in his capacity as Grand Patron of AWAM to promote the business interests of waste managers and wellbeing of Lagosians.


”It is disappointing and sad that at this stage of our development, the matter should result into petition. It should have been continuity and progress. Whatever is the shortcoming, we will correct it. This will get to the governor latest by Monday, April 30. It is sad to see Olusosun dumpsite in dangerous smoke. As a grand patron of AWAM, I am concerned driving around Lagos and seeing built up refuse."


”I must say it is a challenge that is coming back and we will not allow that to happen. The government and governor is trying and responsive but the complexity of Lagos is compounding by the day,” he said.


The former governor of Lagos State noted that AWAM members travelled abroad to learn international best practices in waste management and applied such in the state. He assured that Ambode’s government would evolve the best solution that would work for the larger population.


”I challenge you to go and be ready in your various communities and lines and get ready to work. I appeal to you to maintain peace. The House of Assembly, the Government and the party will work together to promote your business interests. The only thing we can do is to encourage this kind of small scale business to grow. The governor might have been experimenting and it is not a shame to reverse to the former,” Tinubu said.


Earlier, the Chairman of AWAM, Mr Ola Egbeyemi, said that the waste crisis had become unprecedented, with increased volume of waste on Lagos streets, roads, highways and medians. Egbeyemi, who was represented by AWAM spokesman, Gbenga Adebola, said that the situation had taken Lagos back to pre-1999, when waste was competing with vehicular and pedestrian movements.

He appealed to the APC national leader to ensure that the PSP operators continued with the collection and transportation of both domestic and commercial waste.

According to him, the disposal facilities currently badly managed can be put into optimal use, where waste are sorted out in different waste components for recycling, composting and waste-to-energy activities.

”The government should provide enabling environment for us and any other investor by providing more waste infrastructure.

“These include Material Recovery Facilities, Recycling, Waste treatment facilities, Marine Waste management, Landfill management and other value chain, among others.

”Government should provide enforcement of environmental sanitation practices and ensure that the payment for services rendered by the PSP operators are promptly paid, adopting the current franchise system.

”Government should provide guarantees and other incentives to us to enable us invest more into the industry.

”Sir, you have done this before and we believe you can do this again.

”It was your love and belief in us, that made you invest in the Private Sector Participant (PSP) programme, adopting Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) development model,” he said.

naptu2:
Institutional memory and ecology of administration.


One of the things that amazes me in this country is that we often solve problems, then forget that we've solved the problem and, more importantly, forget how we solved the problem and so we re-introduce that problem.


Someone asked a question a few days ago and I was happily surprised that everybody else knew the answer.

She asked why the beautiful new bus stops in Lagos did not have benches. People replied with the short answer, but I'm going to tell the story from the beginning.


Sometime between 1983-1985 the Lagos State Government built big new bus stop shelters across the state. These shelters were built with concrete, were quite roomy (so you'd be sheltered, no matter how heavy the rain was) and had enough benches to seat a reasonable number of commuters. It seemed like a perfect idea.

But, unfortunately these bus stop shelters became the homes of lunatics, area boys, homeless people and NURTW thugs. Commuters could not seek shelter in them because of the kind of people that occupied the shelters. They became dangerous places, especially at night. It was so bad that some of the shelters were eventually dismantled (eg, the bus stop shelter on First Avenue in Ikoyi).

Subsequent governments (Marwa and Fashola) built much smaller bus stop shelters, so that commuters would be sheltered from the sun and rain, but the shelters would be too small to serve as homes for lunatics and thugs. The government had learnt.



Ambode's huge mistake

Twice a week, very early in the morning between 1979-1983, I watched payloaders, bulldozers, compactors and humoungous trucks of the Lagos State Waste Disposal Board (LSWDB) evacuate refuse from a huge dump in Lafiaji as I drove past. Those giant equipment often held up traffic. There were many similar refuse dumps and large waste bins across Lagos.

Despite the efforts of the LSWDB, Lagos was known as the dirtiest city in the world. Foreign TV stations, newspapers and magazines often showed pictures of refuse heaps in Lagos. Most Nigerians felt that Lagos wasn't really as bad as it was being portrayed in the Western media.

Rasaki came and his era wasn't too different from Jakande. However, I noticed that the LSWDB did not evacuate refuse as regularly as they used to. Rasaki eventually converted the LSWDB into LAWMA and placed the management of LAWMA in the hands of the local governments.

Then came the worst era in the history of Lagos. LAWMA completely stopped evacuating refuse during the Oyinlola era. Those large waste bins overflowed with refuse and the trash took over entire streets. The dumps became so full of waste that people dumped their waste anywhere, including on the median of major highways like Ikorodu Road and Lekki Expressway. People relied on cart pushers to evacuate their waste for them. No sane person could dispute the fact that Lagos was the dirtiest city in the world at that time. Colonel Oyinlola recently claimed that people deliberately dumped refuse on the streets in order to sabotage his government.

Things weren't much different in the Marwa era.


Then came Bola Tinubu. He scrapped the practice of having large waste dumps and bins by the roadside. He also banned the activities of cart pushers. Instead, private companies were given franchises to go from home to home to collect refuse from residents. The franchisees would then take the refuse to LAWMA's transfer loading stations and LAWMA would dispose of the waste.

This meant that there was no need to have piles of rubbish on the roadside. Residents were compelled to pay a refuse tax and this meant that they had to use the service in order to get value for their money.

The refuse heaps across the state vanished! In fact, for the first time, the foreign media stopped referring to Lagos as the dirtiest city in the world.

Fashola came and improved the system a bit by ensuring that the private companies used compactors to transport the waste, rather than open trucks.

Now Ambode is here and he has brought back the huge waste bins and restricted the activities of the private companies. I understand what he is trying to do and he has good intentions, but those large waste bins on the road side are a very bad idea. There is no way that Lagosians will resist the temptation to turn them into large refuse dumps with waste spilling on to the streets. I've already seen it happen on Alexander Avenue. Very small waste bins are ok, but those large waste bins will be a disaster.

Those dumps, apart from being unhygenic and an eyesore, will be a PR disaster for him like they were for Colonel Oyinlola. The best strategy remains the strategy used by Bola Tinubu, i.e. intercept the waste in homes, factories and offices, before it gets on the street.

Mustay:
Tinubu intervenes

The Lagos State Government needs to resolve the court case amicably so this looks more like mediation than intervention.

What it shows once again is that our parties have no masterplan and it further shows that Ambode is trying too hard to outperform BRF.

Èkó ó ní baje is now Èkó n te síwájú sínú ìdọ̀tí.

Mega City is now Smart City (this one makes me laugh).

Back to the topic, what AA has done in his Lagos means business ideology is to take Lagos back to what Tinubu learnt from in 1999. It shows there's no learning curve by these guys. You would expect them to leverage on past experiences but instead they willingly create a problem and want praise for solving it.

I have no pity for AA in this. Some have accused his government of being arrogant and I kind of concur. I remember vividly that when this waste crisis started, people blamed LAWMA for not doing their jobs. So many rumors were spread but this government refused to talk about it until the Visionscape deal was exposed. Now, LAWMA is regulating just one company. How laughable.

The government officials gave us different stories about the waste management stuff and assumed we were all stupid. Meanwhile the PSPs had taken them to court. Visionscape's CEO was on Channels the other day and he said the stuff with PSP is none of their business. I totally agree with him. They are a private enterprise - profit, not whatever arrangements government had is their business. It's just amazing that once again in looking for solutions, we'd rather let foreigners come and repatriate funds instead of investing in our own people. We even fund them from scratch (the bond).

There's a lot to write on this but this was one selfish deal selling the services of Lagos to a few. By now, what we should have been talking about is recycling opportunities and not how to clean up waste.