of many Lagos residents to celebrate Christmas and New year, that are just few days to go, in a clean and safe environment may have been dashed going by the failure of the Lagos Waste Management Authority ( LAWMA) to live up to its billing in the area of collection of refuse and disposing same promptly as expected. This, however, has left some streets in major parts of the state littered and heaps of refuse abandoned all over the place.
However, Opera News has gone to some parts of the state badly affected by the ugly situation where we spoke to a couple of residents who expressed total dissatisfaction about the inefficient discharge of duty by LAWMA at the moment knowing well that Yuletide is around the corner.
According to Alice Ugochukwu, a resident in Alimoso area of the state, "We're fed up the way LAWMA officials are doing their job in our area now. It's like this when they returned, but now they have derailed in their services. As u can see, this waste can has been overfilled. You can see the dirt spilling over. We have paid since last week, but they refused to come and pack the refuse. Now, everybody is warming up for Christmas and New year, are we going to be celebrating in a filthy environment like this? It's unfair."
Also, a landlord at Abule Egba area, Alhaji Yisau Alade lamented, " We have paid since last week, but LAWMA officials are yet to come. And when we called their office, they apologized for not coming since. They promised to be here yesterday only to come back from work and still meet the refuse unpacked. The government should please intervene if there's any logistic problem LAWMA if facing at the moment that's affecting their services. We can't continue like living in this kind of dirty environment to avoid contacting cholera."
We also spoke to another resident, Cecelia Odigie, in Ojota who also spoke in the same vein, urging the body to live up to its billing and address the issue before December 25, 2019 as it won't be safe celebrating the festival in a dirty environment.
"We can only appeal to them to accelerate the way they discharge their duty this time around because Christmas is close, just a few days to go. No one will be happy seeing heaps of refuse polluting the whole environment and be happy celebrating. We had been to their office in our area here to complain twice, they only promised to come. We're still expecting them, that's if they will come again this week. I learnt their challenge now is that there's no space at the dumping site in Ojota to dispose the waste already collected. And that's doesn't stop us from generating more and more refuse daily. So, they need to find alternative means of disposing the refuse so that we can be safe from avoidable spread of epidemic disease."
On Friday, December 10, 2019, Opera News contacted one of the LAWMA offices in Abule Egba Lagos on the issue, we're told that normalcy will soon return. The body, therefore, apologized to those affected for any inconvenience its inactivity may have caused.
"We're aware of what's happening at the moment. It's not our fault per se. The situation now is that the dumping site is filled up, and there's no space to drop any refuse now. Even our truck that left since five days has not returned, and I learnt that's how the situation is at the moment almost in all parts of the state. But we're working on an appropriate thing to do on the issue. And very soon, we will be back on the field. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused all our clients."
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