The private waste operator whose officials were arrested by the Lagos State government has denied the allegations of sabotaging efforts to clean up the state.
Ayomide Olayinka, the director of Ayomide Olayinka Ventures, told PREMIUM TIMES in an exclusive interview Tuesday night that the state government had been economical with the truth in its claims.
The Lagos State Government on Tuesday announced it had arrested four officials of the company for dumping waste on the street along the Central Business District of Lagos Island “in the middle of the night.”
According to a statement issued by Kehinde Bamigbetan, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, the suspects were arrested in the early hours of Tuesday while they were using their compactor with registration number FST 908 XG to dump refuse on the street.
‘We are innocent’
In her response, Mrs. Olayinka, whose company is among those engaged by the government as part of intervention efforts to clean the state, said the incident in question happened last week and not this week as Mr. Bamigbetan’s statement would have people believe.
“On Tuesday last week – because I normally do intervention with them since they started the intervention last year. I do it with LAWMA, I also do it with Alausa people. I will give them my truck,” Mrs. Olayinka said.
“On Tuesday, I gave them two trucks to work, around Massalacin in Mushin, that is where they said I should be doing. On that day, maybe it was mistake, maybe it was one of those parkers (who do not know how to operate the truck) that mistakenly touched the compacting system, the back now opened and the waste that is inside the truck now poured on the floor.
“And immediately they parked it.”
Mrs. Olayinka said Segun Adeniji, the General Manager of Lagos Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, was a witness to the incident and would corroborate her claims.
“GM was there, I was not there. GM was telling them that they should pack it, that’s what GM told me, even my driver. The man said they should pack it, after packing it that they should continue the work from that place.
“Maybe immediately GM left, someone called the task force to come and arrest them. Immediately, they called me, it was around 12, I said I will come in the morning.
“When we got to taskforce office, we saw them. Immediately, they took them to court, mobile court. They said they charged them N60,000. Before we got the money they had taken them to Kirikiri (prison).
“It was around 4, we couldn’t go to Kirikiri again. We even gave them money to collect lawyer in that mobile court, my manager paid them N10,000.
“They asked my manager that which paper they gave them from LAWMA, we gave them all the evidence, even the ones that we had worked previously, we gave them all the documents to show that I’m working with LAWMA. The judge said LAWMA is not working again.”
Mrs. Olayinka said she had been working with the state government since last year and has no reason to sabotage the efforts at cleaning up the environment.
“I was doing commercial – at Coca Cola and 7UP – before they gave me domestic, to cover Oworonsoki. I used to go there everyday but the residents are not paying so I now go two times a week to collect waste of those paying.”
When contacted, Mr. Adeniji corroborated Mrs. Olayinka’s claim that the incident happened at Mushin but said the suspects did not pack the waste.
“I passed by and I met a whole truck discharge its contents in the middle of the road,” Mr. Adeniji told PREMIUM TIMES.
“The monitoring (officials) caught the driver and I asked what happened and they told me and as far as they are concerned that was an illegal thing to do.
“When I met them, they were not packing the waste, they were still being interrogated. Of course, the driver said his worker mistakenly pressed something, how that is true I don’t know, I cannot say.”
In his statement, Mr. Bamigbetan also said four other PSP operators had been arrested for illegal dumping of refuse in the past one week.
But speaking to PREMIUM TIMES, Olalekan Owojori, consultant to the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, said they were surprised to hear that the government had been arresting its members.
“We have requested for the names of the four other operators who were alleged to have been arrested because we were not aware of it so that we can carry out our own investigations,” Mr. Owojori said.
“Our position is that we condemn any form of sabotage, we’ll not be involved in any form of sabotage or any form of self-help. And that’s why despite all the challenges and uncertainties in the market we have not embarked on any form of strike.
“We have gone to court to seek justice and the judge has said to us that we must continue the work and we have made a commitment through the court to Lagosians that as long as we are allowed to work, we’ll continue to work.
“So there is no way we would, directly or indirectly, sabotage the efforts of the government.”
The arrest of the PSP officials came days after a PREMIUM TIMES’ report on how the newly contracted foreign firm, Visionscape Group, is overwhelmed by the enormous waste generated by residents.
The PSP operators and the state government are currently negotiating an out-of-court settlement after the private waste operators sued the government for removing them from residential waste collection.
Mr. Owojori said the arrests, including the latest one, would not jeopardise ongoing talks with the government.
“In this particular case that we have been aware of, it’s a clear case of error because this woman is undergoing an unprofitable intervention for the government,” he said.
“So she cannot be working on intervention with the government and at the same time sabotaging the government. According to her, she’s still working for the government.
“The ongoing negotiation with the government should not be jeopardised because having met with his excellency the governor, by now we should have moved closer to resolving all the issues.
“For us as an association, we are indebted to Lagosians to ensure that we cooperate with the government to ensure a clean environment.”
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