We have talked in hush tones, begged and appealed to all parties; they have remained adamant. They are not giving us any listening ears either as community leaders.
And Lagos is the worse for it, as heaps of waste pile up in our homes and streets; we have begun again to live with waste, something we thought we had put behind and outlived forever.
If this situation persists before the rains finally set in, some of our communities without good roads and drainage would be the worse for it. With waste now being dumped in canals to free homes and premises of piled up refuse, our people are in for trouble this year, floods will take over homes, properties and valuables will be washed away, if not humans; the handwritings are on the wall: communities are littered with waste, drainage filled up with unmoved waste.
If left unattended, Lagosians are faced with the possible twin problems of massive flooding and outbreak of diseases. The waste dumps that once lived with us until the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration came and battled strenuously to consign them to history are again sprouting out all over the Lagos metropolis.
As community leaders, our people are asking questions but we are unable to give them satisfactory answers why we have to return to this path; we were paying the waste operators, we didn’t complain and they were coming to move the refuse from house to house.
Our environments were clean and tidy, then, the state government decided to change a winning team, oblivious that if you make such a change mid-way, what you get is what we are experiencing now.
We pray, therefore, that Tinubu, known for his undiluted love for the people of Lagos, intervene and prevail on Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to overlook whatever wrong the PSP operators might have committed in the interest of the people and find a way to bring them back to work to take Lagos out of the looming waste disaster.
It is our plea also that Asiwaju should impress it on the governor that consolidating waste bill, water rate and Land Use Charge into one and served on residents once a year as we hear he intends to do will not be in the interest of the people. The bills might become too huge to be paid at once.
Instead, he should leave them the way they are currently served the PSP, every two months, the water rate that has now gone even far beyond the ordinary person, monthly and the Land Use Charge, once a year, to allow for easy payment.
Lagos cannot continue for too long under this sort of waste build-up. Governor Ambode should be prevailed upon to have a change of mind on the PSP operators. There is honour in admitting that a mistake is made and beating a retreat.
Alhaji Yinusa Adio,
General Secretary, Central Committee,
Community Development Associations,
Lagos Mainland, 17 Palm Avenue, Mushin,
Lagos State
