Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has dismissed Lagos State's planned monthly environmental sanitation exercise as outdated and impractical for a megacity. The former Labour Party governorship candidate, now a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, criticised the initiative in a post on X on Friday. His comments followed an announcement by Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, that the exercise would resume between 6:30am and 8:30am on a Saturday. Wahab urged residents to participate, calling it a step toward a cleaner, healthier, flood-free Lagos. He stated that no court ruling had invalidated the exercise, citing a Court of Appeal judgment affirming the legality of the laws backing it.
Wahab emphasized collective responsibility, saying citizens must stop blaming government while avoiding personal accountability. He confirmed that major transport unions had agreed to restrict movement during the two-hour window, with exceptions for emergencies, scheduled flights, and examinations. Rhodes-Vivour, however, argued that shutting down a city of 20 million people to clean surroundings was "parochial and lacks imagination." He stressed that the real issue lies in the logistics of waste collection, disposal, and recycling. Without systemic reform, he said, the exercise would be "cosmetic and unimaginative" and yield little long-term impact.
Rhodes-Vivour highlights a contradiction in demanding city-wide shutdowns while admitting the waste system remains broken. If the core problem is collection and recycling, then two hours of street sweeping does nothing for Lagos residents' daily reality. The exercise places burden on citizens without fixing the infrastructure failures they cannot control. For the 20 million people in Lagos, cleanliness cannot depend on symbolism over service.
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