The Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources has revealed that the state is making significant progress in tackling open defecation, with 150 individuals arrested for the offence in 2025, adding that the arrests included squatters displaced from pedestrian bridges, which were subsequently cleaned and restored.
The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, revealed this on Sunday at the 2026 Ministerial Press Briefing, where he reeled out the achievements of the ministry in the last one year to commemorate the 7th year anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
He said that to further combat the open defecation scourge in the state, the Ministry is currently building 20 Toilet facility consisting of 200 Toilet Unit and 40 Bathrooms with urinals for male.
The
facility, which he said is about 70% completed, include provisions for People
with Disability (PWD) and will be solar powered with an on-site treatment
plant.
According to him, “The Lagos State Government currently has over 1710 public
toilets across parks, markets and residential areas in 20 LGAs and 37 LCDA.”
He further disclosed that the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) in 2025, served
192 Environmental Abatement Notices and arrested 6,789 individuals for unlawful
highway crossing and failure to use pedestrian bridges, while another 3,786
persons, including illegal traders, street hawkers, environmental offenders,
and cart pushers, were apprehended during enforcement operations.
He
added that all those arrested were prosecuted in line with the Lagos State
Environmental Law.
He noted that beyond enforcement, the ministry held 170 stakeholder meetings
with communities to address environmental infractions and improve public
compliance with sanitation regulations.
Similarly, he disclosed that in an attempt to ensure that Lagos State remains
a flood free city, from Year 2025 till date, a total number of 18 Primary
Channels with approximately 76km length were approved and executed under
maintenance Dredging of Primary Channels programme.
The
Drainage Enforcement and Compliance
Department has also identified 2,218 contravening structures in various
communities in the state and successfully removed 1544 of these contravening
structures from drainage alignment with a success rate calculated to 70%.
He said: “In the last one year, the present administration has awarded the
construction of over 100km of secondary collector drain and 30km of primary
channels between April 2025 and April 2026. There are also on-going drainage
channels at various levels of completion.”
The Commissioner further revealed that the return of the statewide observance
of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise remains the key highlight of
the administration’s one year scorecard, stressing that without a clean
environment living becomes a challenge.
He
called on residents to turn out for the next sanitation exercise slated
for May 30, saying it would offer an opportunity to clean the environment
following the Eid celebrations.
He added that during the period under review, Lagos State got ranked as the
top-performing State in Nigeria for Climate Governance for the second year
running.
Giving update on the enforcement of the total ban on the distribution, sales
and usage of Styrofoam, Wahab said that the ministry confiscated about 5
million worth of banned Styrofoam and SUPs from warehouses and malls, while
removing a total of 137,530.94 kg of PET (plastic) from the environment in
2025.
“The
recycling initiative of the department recorded a positive trend based on data
obtained from collection centers indicating a significant improvement in waste
recovery efforts. Total Recyclables Collected for the year is 2025 185,850.72
kg,” he said.
He said: “As part of the Ministry’s continuous wetland monitoring and
compliance activities, some developers were found carrying out unauthorized
reclamation and illegal construction on wetland areas and were subsequently
served statutory notices, given 48 hours to comply.
“Where compliance was not achieved, enforcement actions were carried out,
leading to the sealing of nine (9) facilities involved in illegal wetland
encroachment across Ogombo, Lekki Phase II, Itoikin-Epe axis, and Majidun,
Ikorodu, thereby preventing further degradation of environmentally sensitive
wetland ecosystems.”
The
commissioner, however, noted that as part of the tradition of planting
trees on the annual designated day for Tree planting and on other
ceremonial day, the ministry recorded a total of 16, 966 trees planted while
13,572 trees were successfully established. “These trees are spread all over
the five Divisions of Lagos State across public and private schools, road
setbacks, and private and government residential estates and some public
facilities. Breakdown shows 2779 were planted in Ikeja, 490 in Badagry, 1,601
in Ikorodu, 3,625 in Lagos Island and 8,471 in Epe,” he added.
