Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has issued a 72-hour quit notice to occupants of shanties and makeshift structures along the median of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway as part of the state’s environmental renewal efforts.
The directive followed the monthly environmental sanitation exercise held across communities in Surulere Local Government Area on Saturday. The Lagos waste management initiative also includes expanded waste collection services and new recycling infrastructure aimed at improving sanitation across Africa’s largest city. Governor Sanwo-Olu and his wife, Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, participated in the sanitation exercise alongside government officials.
Addressing journalists after the exercise, the governor announced that enforcement teams would begin clearing illegal structures along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway from next week. The operation will cover the highway median stretching from Orile-Iganmu to Okokomaiko.
“This is the final notice to everyone occupying the median of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway. From next week, we are coming to clear the entire median. Everything there will go. Every illegal structure will be removed. “It is not meant to be a market. It is not meant to be a place where people erect structures. It is a highway median, and we must preserve it, especially considering the huge public investment on that corridor.
“It’s a 10-lane highway that was built with the resources of our taxpayers. I will not fold my arms and allow them to turn that international gateway into a slum. This is a notice that I am giving officially to everybody on that corridor. We are starting next week, and we are going to deploy thousands of men there.”
Sanwo-Olu said preserving public infrastructure remains essential to maintaining Lagos as a modern commercial hub and protecting investments funded by taxpayers.
The governor disclosed that the state government would soon add 150 compactors to its waste collection fleet to improve refuse evacuation across Lagos.
He added that waste tricycles would also be deployed to inner communities to strengthen last-mile collection services under the Lagos waste management programme. Sanwo-Olu urged residents to support the reforms by disposing of waste responsibly and paying their waste collection bills promptly.
“Waste management is not the responsibility of government alone. It is a collective responsibility.
“Residents must also play their part by paying for waste collection services. That is what enables the PSP operators to continue providing efficient services.” He also encouraged parents to involve their children in sanitation exercises to promote environmental responsibility from an early age.
Following the sanitation exercise, Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources Tokunbo Wahab inspected the Olusosun Landfill, where work is ongoing on a new material recovery facility. According to Wahab, the project represents a transition from the traditional “collect and dump” approach to a circular waste economy that converts refuse into valuable resources.
“This place will be one of the transfer loading stations that will transfer about 2,500 metric tonnes of waste a day to the material recovery facility that will be located in Ikorodu. The target is for it to commence operations before the end of the year.
“We can’t sustain the linear waste management system that we have practised for over four decades, which simply means we have been used to collect and dump. Collect and dump cannot be sustainable.
“So let us make waste a resource, for wealth, for energy, and for many other purposes. That is the transition we are going through now.”
The state government said the broader Lagos waste management strategy includes a modern recycling facility expected to process about 4,250 metric tonnes of waste daily, supporting environmental sustainability while creating new opportunities within the circular economy.
