Inside Lagos waste, flood crisis: Are local governments pulling their weight?
•Residents battle council chairmen By Olasunkanmi Akoni, Esther Onyegbula, Juliet Umeh & Cynthia Alo As mountains of refuse continue to dot major roads, markets and residential communities across Lagos, while floods repeatedly submerge neighbourhoods after heavy rainfall, a fundamental question is increasingly being asked by residents: If the 57 Local Government Areas, LGAs, and Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs, receive monthly statutory allocations, why has waste management and drainage maintenance become a challenge?
While the Lagos State government has consistently insisted that indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains remains a major contributor to flooding, many residents argued that LGAs and LCDAs have not done enough to prevent such practices or complement the state’s intervention through regular refuse evacuation, environmental sanitation, enforcement and drainage clearing.
On his part, the Chairman of Ikeja Local Government, Comrade Akeem Dauda, popularly known as AKOD, reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to creating a cleaner, healthier and safer environment for residents after recently leading members of the council’s executive on an extensive environmental sanitation exercise across key locations within the council area.
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