The pall of smoke that hangs over Ojota and its environs has become permanent and those of us who either live or pass through the area can hardly remember when it was not so. The accompanying smell changes from acrid and bitter tasting to sickeningly sweet and cloying depending on whether some burning has been done to reduce the mountains of refuse at this government-designated dumpsite. Any day, rain or shine, the dump smells bad.

A few meters shy of the old tollgate out of Lagos on the Shagamu-Ibadan Express way, the site used to be mined for laterite, a fine mud-like soil used for landfill purposes. Now Lagos State Government has mandated that the deep pits gouged out of the earth should be filled up again, only this time it is being done with refuse.

They may have had good reason for taking the decision because after all landfill with refuse was done successfully on the track of land to the right leading up to Anthony from Oworonshoki. That piece of land is now up for grabs as choice location for new housing development. The unsightly refuse that rose magnificently into the sky line only a couple of years ago, under a new layer of rubble and laterite, will soon be history. No one remembers if open incineration was ever done at that site but it does not matter any more since the air is clear of smoke and soot that could not have been that much of a bother if no one ever complained.

Descent into Ikorodu Road on the cloverleaf from the tollgate guarantees at least five minutes in traffic while buses of all sizes wanting to disgorge passengers or pick up more make their rickety way over the badly rutted road into motor parks and bus stops that are in even worse condition. Heavy articulated trucks seeking access through Kudirat Abiola Way to the industrial lay out behind Ojota compound the traffic situation, so that more commonly, the time spent in traffic at this point is anything upwards of 15 minutes. This would be 15 minutes of inhaling rich smells from putrefying refuse even as you are besieged by noise from the megaphones calling for passengers and an army of street hawkers selling mostly bread and assorted snacks displayed for immediate consumption. Whole wardrobes of clothes are also available for sale, a range of fashion accessories including wristwatches and designer perfumes along with pirated music and video, household electronic equipment and of course, the ever-present GSM recharge cards.

On a day when some burning has been going on at the dumpsite, it is likely that you would take a car full of the vile smelling smoke with you, particularly if you have no air conditioning and are unable to keep your windows up because of the sweltering heat.

Now that is just for the passer by, there are those who live and work in Ojota and the other areas nearby whose air has been fouled by the continual burning of refuse and other waste of unknown origins.  The smoke that emanates spreads as far as Anthony on Ikorodu Road extends over all of Ogudu and parts of Ketu depending on the direction of the wind. Residents of the areas in between say that when the refuse is burnt their homes are suffused with smoke and that soot penetrates every crevice and body orifice.

Air conditioning that some now see as mandatory has not been much use since as they explain windows have to be open during frequent power outages.  Besides think that not many can afford the luxury of air conditioning anyway and where they can, the higher wattage generators needed to power them remain mostly out of reach and you soon get fed up with all the noise.

All of this makes nonsense of individual efforts to purify living space, effort that becomes more ridiculous when one considers that dashing in and out of apartments to and from cars while holding ones breath is hardly practical even if homes and cars can be made completely free of this bad air. Relocation is not an immediate option for many because two years rent is simply not affordable.

Many must have experienced first hand the negative effect of the Ojota refuse dump on their health, although only a few may have been able to link increased respiratory tract and other infections with their proximity to the dumpsite.  Whole colonies of medicine vendors hawking their wares in plastic basins dispense antibiotics by their dozen to ignorant customers in the area. These vendors are found all along the roadside explaining how this one cures the constant nausea and diarrhoea, that one will take care of the oozing boil and yet another will look after the stubborn cough. All of them taken together with a shot of local gin infused with herbs, is just what these unlicensed pharmacists order for healthy living in the heavily polluted environment. Next week another course of multicoloured capsules will promise cure for another round of ailments that are bound to present themselves and the myriad symptoms will provide a decent means of livelihood for the medicine vendors.

Our acceptance of this unsavoury state of affairs makes it easy to put the blame on an uncaring government and its agents, especially if you consider that with private sector participation, Lagos State Waste Management Agency has so far only been effective at waste dispersal. To make matters worse, indiscriminate burning of refuse ensures that those who miss getting slapped in the face by debris flying off makeshift refuse trucks will catch their lungful of soot should they venture past designated dumpsites which are located mostly in densely populated areas.

These activities of its parastatal have not yet been criticised by the Lagos State Ministry of Environment, at least not openly. The ministry has also ignored unbridled emissions from factories many of which pipe chemical waste into open drains and belch smoke and other questionable fumes into the atmosphere. Even where the hazard may have more immediate consequences like the dense white smoke that rises from the sawmills of Oko Baba to blind drivers on Third Mainland Bridge, the ministry and others that should be interested prefer to remain quiet hoping perhaps that the problem will go away by itself.

The portfolio of the environment ministry in Lagos appears to be limited to the beautification of highbrow neighbourhoods, when they are not talking about clogged drains and perennial floods. There has been no thought to the effect of environmental pollution on the health of the people nor have mechanisms been established to monitor health and wellbeing against the quality of the environment.

However, we the people whose health and wellbeing are affected by the deteriorating environment apparently see no point in making demands of those responsible for its management. We turn our faces away from the degradation of our surroundings and choose not to make the connections to our failing health. Higher incidences of respiratory ailments especially among children more of whom are diagnosed with asthma almost daily has become mere rhetoric because there has been no formal research done to establish it as fact. Also because we have our medicine vendors still catering to our individual health needs we refuse to see the importance of collective action towards prevention.

Even as our expectation of a breath of fresh air at least on Third Mainland Bridge became marred by smoke from burning sawdust and foul smells from refuse dumps became a permanent feature in our atmosphere and the soot destroys more than our furniture we still live in the hope that government and its agents will by themselves make the decisions and implement action to improve the quality of our lives. We may be well advised to come to the realisation now that this is in fact a vain hope.

Robot  Villager

# 1 The pall of smoke that hangs over Ojota and its environs has become permanent and those of us who either live or pass through the area can hardly remember when it was not so. The accompanying smell changes from acrid and bitter tasting to sickeningly sweet and cloying depending on whether some burning has been done to reduce the mountains of refuse at this government-designated dumpsite. Any day, rain or shine, the dump smells bad. A few meters shy of the old tollgate out of Lagos on the Shagamu-Ibadan Express way, the site used to be mined for laterite, a fine mud-like soil use...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 18.03.2006 12:05

emj  Villager

# 2 Good Article Mutti, I hope that the State Commissioner for Environment Mr Tunji Bello or his agents get to read this piece, you should as a matter of urgency forward a copy of this article to him. They harass every resident and offices to pay the govt appointed refuse collector a fixed amount depending on the area every month, they then collect and dump the refuse without treating it at ojota and other sites. The incinerator that lagos state had close by the flyover when entering lagos from the third mainland bridge axis was sold to a private company long ago, it was dismantled and sold off to a company that has nothing to do with refuse collection. I doubt if the incinerator was put to proper use for long before the govt in power then sold it off. Our environment is daily contaminated by all manner of chemical waste from factories, smoke from saw mills by ebute-metta/third mainland, the land-fill by ojota and other areas, indiscriminate burning of bush and old tires, car exhaust etc. Indeed most part of Lagos state now look like slums, you have dust and soots on buildings, all the underneath of fly-overs have been converted mechanic workshops, refuse dumps, toilets etc. Posted by emj| 19.03.2006 23:52