Janet Ogundepo To ensure proper solid waste management and indiscriminate waste dumping, the Lagos State Government in January 2018 banned the operations of cart pushers and wheelbarrow operators. Aside from dumping wastes by roadsides and at undesignated places, the then Secretary to the State Government, Mr Tunji Bello, said that cart pushers posed security threats to residents of the state as they hid their arms and ammunition in their carts and under the guise of collecting refuse, rob unsuspecting residents. Following the announcement, the government began to seize the handcarts of cart pushers, leaving their presence scarce in areas that once enjoyed their services.
The activities of the Private Sector Partnership, popularly known as PSP or LAWMA trucks began to pick up as it serviced areas previously covered by the cart pushers. The early days of the ban seemed to show the government’s seriousness in the matter as, on several occasions, the seized handcarts from the cart pushers were destroyed. For example, on July 6, 2022, the Lagos Waste Management Authority stated that it had destroyed about 1,000 handcarts seized from the illegal cart pushers within two months when the clampdown commenced.
But a few years after, cart pushers handle their businesses without fear of capture. Officials of LAWMA had decried residents’ preference for cart pushers instead of the PSP trucks assigned to several streets and corners of the state. Recently, the Director of Medical Service.