Lagos Reopens Solus II Dumpsite, Orders PSP Haulers to Deliver

One hundred trucks a day. That is the minimum throughput Lagos State expects at the reopened Solus II dumpsite in Igando, after emergency rehabilitation restored a facility that had sat closed in the Alimosho Local Government Area while refuse piled up across the city's western districts.

Tokunbo Wahab, Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, delivered the operating target on Wednesday during an inspection of the site. He paired the reopening with a blunt ultimatum to Private Sector Participation (PSP) waste operators, who collect household refuse under contract with the state.

"Too much is given, so much more is expected. There is no more excuse," Wahab said, directing his message to the PSP leadership.

The state government, he argued, had fulfilled its side of the bargain. It rehabilitated the dumpsite and repaired the access road, which engineers expect to hold for at least one year under a quarterly maintenance schedule.

"The state government has done its own bit; let your PSP members also put their skin in it and see how they can achieve what we set out jointly to achieve, because they suggested we put this into play and now, we've done it for them," he said.

Whose proposal was it?

The commissioner explained that the rehabilitation of Solus followed suggestions from the operators themselves. Haulers preferred reopening the existing facility to waiting for new dumpsites to be established around Badagry and Epe, and the state acted on that preference.

The arithmetic behind the reopening is straightforward. Wahab said the daily flow of one hundred trucks from the Lagos West axis gives the government "the comfort that our streets and our homes will not be littered with waste."

Responding to resident complaints about missed collections, the commissioner said the state would enforce its polluter-pay policy and hold operators accountable for services they had already been paid to deliver. He warned the government would "put their legs to the fire" to ensure compliance.

What changed at LAWMA?

A parallel restructuring has reshaped the Lagos Waste Management Authority. Following a directive from Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, senior LAWMA staff on Grade Levels 13 to 17, with a few exceptions, have been redeployed to the mainstream civil service.

Wahab framed the personnel moves as part of a transition from a conventional waste collection system to resource recovery, a shift that redefines what the authority is for. The state is also exploring alternative disposal locations, including proposed new sites around Badagry and Epe, to build a more sustainable disposal network.

What does the reopening change for operators?

For haulers, the answer is measured in kilometres. Olugbenga Adebola, National President of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAMN), said the absence of accessible disposal facilities in recent months had forced operators to travel more than 120 kilometres outside Lagos to Sagamu to discharge refuse.

"As operators, we are the happiest people today," Adebola said. He pledged that the association would work with the government to keep the facility running and committed to a shared stewardship model.

"We have told the commissioner and his team and the LAWMA team that we are going to co-own this place and ensure that we use this place as a model," he said.

Adebola credited the state for supplying new bulldozers at the facility, equipment he said would improve operations and cut the queues of trucks waiting to discharge. He predicted that refuse evacuation would improve in Alimosho and adjoining areas, including Iba, Festac, Badagry and parts of Agege, within two weeks.

His message to member operators carried a harder edge.

"Everybody needs to double their hustles. If you cannot fly, please be running. If you can't run, please be working. If you can't work, then crawl. But no more crawling, we are saying, no more crawling," Adebola said.

What happens next?

The queue of pending reopenings defines the coming months. Adebola urged the state to accelerate rehabilitation of other disposal facilities, including Ewu-Elepe, Ikorodu, Oke-Aro and Badagry. The Ikorodu dumpsite has now been shut for nearly two months, and he warned that communities there would continue to face evacuation challenges until it reopens.

Two deadlines now structure the story: the two-week window Adebola set for visible improvement in Alimosho and its neighbouring districts, and the quarterly maintenance cycle that will test whether the repaired access road holds. Whether PSP operators match the state's investment, under a polluter-pay regime the commissioner has promised to enforce, will decide if Lagos West's streets stay clear.