Lagos waste crisis: Tokunbo Wahab apologises to residents over months of poor refuse collection

Precious Omolu 14:23 - 26 June 2026

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Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, publicly apologized to residents on Arise TV, admitting that waste collection over the past few months has been inadequate

Lagos Environment Commissioner Tokunbo Wahab apologises to residents over poor waste collection, outlines plans for waste-to-energy projects and reforms to tackle the state's waste management crisis.

Tokunbo Wahab apologised to Lagos residents, admitting waste collection has been "very bad" over the past three to four months and assured that the government is fixing the problem.
He said Lagos is moving away from the old landfill system to a circular waste economy, with investments in waste-to-energy facilities to improve waste management.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has ordered round-the-clock waste evacuation across the state, while the government has also revived the monthly environmental sanitation exercise after a 10-year break.

Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, has apologised to residents over the poor state of waste collection across the state, admitting that refuse evacuation has been inadequate in the last three to four months.

The apology comes after weeks of complaints from Lagosians over heaps of uncollected waste on roads, street corners and drainage channels in different parts of the city. Many residents have also taken to social media to express frustration over delays in waste collection, with some saying refuse has remained unattended for weeks.

Weeks of operational delays left heaps of uncollected refuse across major Lagos corridors, sparking intense public frustration and health concerns before recent round-the-clock clearance directives

Speaking on Friday during The Morning Show on Arise TV, Wahab admitted the situation had become unacceptable.

“Let me start by apologising to Lagosians. The past three, four months have been very bad with respect to waste collection, but we didn’t just get there overnight,” he said.

“I won’t play the ostrich by not admitting we had a challenge. Are we fixing it? Yes.”

The commissioner said the Lagos State Government has already begun addressing the immediate challenges while also introducing long-term reforms aimed at improving the state's waste management system.

According to him, Lagos can no longer continue with the decades-old practice of simply collecting waste and dumping it at landfill sites, especially as the city continues to grow rapidly.

He explained that major landfill sites such as Olusosun and Solous were originally located on the outskirts of Lagos, but urban expansion has now surrounded those facilities, making the existing waste disposal model unsustainable.

“For decades, we had practised a linear waste system. We just pick waste and we dump. Olusosun and Solous were the outskirts of Lagos. We all went to build around them,” Wahab said.

“We can’t sustain that. We don’t even have the land. If our total land mass is 0.4 percent of the country’s land mass, 3,355 square kilometres of land, it shows we must think outside the box.”

He said the state is shifting towards a circular waste economy where waste is treated as a valuable resource rather than something to be discarded.

As part of that transition, Wahab highlighted investments in waste-to-energy projects, including a biodigester facility at the Ecocircuit Centre that converts food waste into energy. He also revealed that the government is working on a larger waste-to-energy plant expected to process about 4,250 tonnes of waste every day.

To permanently fix the crisis, Lagos is moving away from landfills toward a circular economy, investing in advanced waste-to-energy technologies that can process thousands of tonnes of waste daily

The worsening refuse situation recently prompted Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to order round-the-clock evacuation of waste across Lagos, with sanitation agencies directed to clear refuse heaps from roads and public spaces.

The renewed efforts come just months after the Lagos State Government reinstated the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in April. The exercise returned nearly 10 years after it was suspended in November 2016 following a court ruling.

State officials say the combination of improved waste evacuation, environmental sanitation and investments in modern waste processing facilities is expected to help tackle the city's growing waste management challenges in the coming years.