Thirty cart pushers were arrested in Lagos on Monday as the new ban on cart/wheel barrow pushers took effect on Monday.
Olayinka Egbeyemi, Chairman of the State’s Task Force on Environmental and Other Special Offences (Enforcement Unit), said the defaulters were members of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) who were sabotaging the efforts of the state government to keep the state clean.
Egbeyemi said the arrested offenders were alleged to have dumped refuse along the streets in some highbrow areas of Lagos, so as to paint a picture that the recent ban on cart pushers had left the state dirtier.
“There are reports that refuse are littering the Lekki, Victoria Island, Ajah and other parts of the state and investigations reveal that it is the handiwork of unscrupulous elements within Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and their outside sponsors who are not comfortable with the new arrangement for the management of waste in the state and are hell-bent on sabotaging government effort and frustrating them from carrying it out,” said Egbeyemi in a statement.
“The state government has vowed to go all out against the saboteurs and after their sponsors and punish them in line with the laws of the State.”
Egbeyemi said the new waste management policy would revolutionalise waste administration in line with global best practices.
He urged citizens of the state to cooperate with the government by refusing to patronize cart pushers, which is now illegal.
“We also need to let Lagosians know that it is illegal to use cart pushers to evacuate refuse and they should stop encouraging it; there are PSP vehicles that come around to pack refuse and they are the ones they should patronise and not these cart pushers,” Egbeyemi stated.
“We want to notify all these cart pushers that their activities are illegal in Lagos. Lagos is a mega city and we have all it takes to collect refuse.
“So, the issue of going to the streets and collecting refuse and then dump same on the road is an act of sabotage to the government.
“For the past two to three weeks, we have been noticing refuse on the roads and investigations have revealed that part of those carrying out such activities and sabotaging government efforts are these cart pushers and probably there might be some people behind them.”