Lagos State cannot continue to explain away its worsening waste management crisis with excuses and admissions of poor planning, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) House of Assembly candidate for Eti-Osa Constituency II, Ayodele Adio, has said.
Adio was reacting to comments by the Lagos State Deputy Governor, who reportedly said the government had asked waste management operators to undertake a job whose scale they “did not predict” and that the government initially thought the state was generating about 13,000 tonnes of waste daily.
“After more than two decades of successive administrations, how can a government responsible for managing one of the largest and most densely populated cities in Africa say it did not predict the scale of the waste it would have to manage?”
According to him, the Deputy Governor’s comments expose a deeper problem of poor planning and a lack of imagination within the state government.
“Waste generation is not an unpredictable phenomenon. Population growth, urbanisation, commercial activity and consumption patterns are measurable. A serious government should be planning ahead of these realities, not discovering them after the streets and neighbourhoods are overwhelmed by refuse.”
Adio also criticised the Deputy Governor’s reference to the situation in other African cities, arguing that Lagos should not benchmark itself against disorder when it has the resources, talent and institutional capacity to set higher standards.
“If you go around Africa and see disorganisation, that should not become an excuse for Lagos to accept the same. Lagos should be the city other African cities are studying for solutions, not a government constantly explaining why it cannot solve problems that are within its capacity to solve,” he said.
He said the government’s response demonstrates that it is trapped in an old way of thinking that is increasingly incapable of addressing the complexity of modern Lagos.
“The problem is not just waste. The problem is a government that appears to have run out of fresh ideas. We are dealing with a city that has grown dramatically in population, economic activity and physical expansion, yet the government continues to approach today’s challenges with yesterday’s thinking.”
Adio argued that Lagos needs a fundamental rethink of its waste management architecture, including better data, modern waste collection systems, stronger enforcement, investment in recycling and waste-to-energy infrastructure, and incentives that integrate the informal recycling economy into a properly regulated system.
“Lagos does not lack money or human capacity. What we lack is sufficient imagination, accountability and the willingness to redesign systems that are no longer fit for purpose,” he said.
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