The Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) is making roads into Apapa after several months of fruitless struggle to access the ports environment due to the activities of container-laden truck and petroleum tanker drivers, who blocked the roads and bridges leading into the area.
It is, however, not certain how long LAWMA would sustain its current efforts, as the truckers, drawing from past experiences, can suddenly resurface on the roads and bridges, thereby making them inaccessible again to LAWMA officials and their waste compactors.
The agency is advantage of the respite being currently experienced in Apapa, as the truckers have reduced their occupation of the Ijora-Apapa Bridge, a major entry route into Apapa.
In the last two weeks, officials of the agency have been evacuating refuse and sand long accumulated on the bridge.
The street sweepers armed with brooms and packers, were sighted again on Monday, August 12, taking advantage of the light traffic, occasioned by the public holidays declared by the Federal Government to mark this year’s Eid-el-Kabir.
Muyiwa Gbadegesin, Managing Director/CEO of LAWMA, who was out in the street alongside the agency’s management team, to supervise the exercise, lamented the blockade of the roads by trucks, but added that the agency was sparing no efforts in restore sanity to the degraded environment.
According to Gbadegesin, the clean-up is in furtherance of the executive order on zero tolerance for reckless waste disposal, recently signed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu
“You will recall a few weeks ago the governor issued an executive order and we started the clean up exercise from Orile all the way down to Badagry expressway, as you are aware Apapa has been a major problem area, it’s been difficult to access this location. So we are here to monitor the ongoing clean-up exercise of the Lagos metropolis which is in furtherance of the executive order of the governor.
“We have to seize this opportunity of Sallah break because traffic will be a little free today, we decided to come here to embark on massive clean-up of the axis, the LAWMA workers are all over the place clearing the silt and waste accumulated over several years because the area has been abandoned,” said Gbadegesin.
The MD urged the residents to support the cleaner Lagos initiative and stop indiscriminate dumping of waste by embracing the habit of bagging their refuse.
They should also make sure they have a waste bin at home. We don’t want people dumping their waste by the roadside because this can put us at the risk of epidemic outbreak.’’
Recall that theagency began massive waste evacuation in the Lagos-West district which comprising Agege, Ikeja, Badagry, Ojo, Ifako-Ijaiy in compliance with the executive order.
Specific areas also touched include Lagos State University and Okokomaiko axis with the deployment of mechanical shovels, bulldozers, excavators, sweepers, walking floor trailers, and long chassis tippers in the effort to arrest the waste menace in the state.
JOSHUA BASSEY
