THE LAGOS RATS ARE BACK

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Now that remnants of perishable eatables have taken over the Lagos streets, marketplaces, main roads etc., the state is apparently back to the gone days of filthiness – the era when citizens were susceptible to terminable diseases on account of odoriferous odours.

The rats are fully, actively back! They are glad to have been granted unsolicited state pardon after a very long stay in incarceration. And in their intimidating, fearful numbers, they came back to the Lagos life they used to enjoy gratis – feeding graciously fat on dirts.

Bola Tinubu met Lagos seriously filthy in 1999. He created the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) to combat the international embarrassment. Thousands of jobs were therefore created and the environmental menace significantly mitigated. To tackle headlong the psychiatric disorder in those who indiscriminately urinate on Lagos roads, defecate on walkways and dump refuse as they so wish on Lagos streets, the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) was birthed. With the officers of the KAI in their force uniforms and with their vehicles strategically stationed on Lagos roads, no one dare littered the ground with a paper or a nylon, let alone urinate or defecate in the open, or dump a load of refuse other than as required. Lagos was relatively, commendably tidy.

Raji Fashola got the baton after his godfather’s 8-year reign on the throne. In consolidation, he reorganized the LAWMA, banned scavengers from refuse business and partnered private individuals to sail through his sanitization crusade. In collaboration with government, interested Lagosians went into refuse business by acquiring refuse vehicles to help pack refuse from Lagos houses on monthly payment by beneficiaries.

Lagos was relatively clean until the amiable Akinwunmi Ambode changed the game. In his wisdom, the best way he could consolidate the legacies of the last-incumbent and that of his godfather who anointed him against all odds was to kick out KAI, lynch LAWMA and relinquish the public-private partnership on the refuse business. He meant well. But his insights were rather shallow and his calculations obviously off track.

Vision Scape which was empowered against the existence of LAWMA and the public-private partnership has fumbled, wobbled, and Lagos returned to its dark days of dirtiness. Even if the governor had performed wonderfully well in all facets of governance, his woeful performance in the area of sanitation has dropped his score to zero. This is because health is wealth i.e. wealth without sound health is a waste.

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