TheCable

The Lagos state wastes management authority (LAWMA) as again restated its commitment to converting the Olusosun dump site in Ojota to a golf course.

Oladimeji Oresanya, the general manager of LAWMA, told NAN in Lagos on Monday that the project would come under the second 10-year rolling plan.

He said that the rolling plan would also focus on development of modern disposal sites.

“In the rolling plan, we are focusing downstream and our downstream is at the disposal sites. Our landfills development is a real focus; we already signed contract for development of our state-of-the-heart landfill sites at Epe and Badagry,” he said.

“And those landfill sites are the real focus for the next rolling plan and a site also will be located in Ogun state. That is around Mowe/Ibafo area that we took over.

“Then we will close down the Olusosun dumpsite completely and turn it to golf course. We will continue to build transfer stations and material recovery plants in Lagos.

“Those are parts of the 10-year rolling plan and we will increase our waste conversion to almost 70 per cent or 80 per cent of the waste we generate in Lagos.

“The wastes will now be converted to something very useful within that 10-year rolling plan. Then, we want to make sure that we get the economics of waste management very well and the economics must be perfect within the next 10 years. So those are the key ingredients of the plan.’’

Oresanya added that the waste conversion programme would be expanded in 2015 to process waste into useful products that would be exported to Asian countries.

According to him, LAWMA now converts pet bottles and tyres into jerseys, fibers and asphalt at Mile Two in Amuwo Odofin local government area.

It is not the first time that Oresanya would speak about Olusosun dump site becoming a golf course.

“Olusosun is turning green; most of our landfills are going to look like golf course,” he told journalists back in August 2010.

“We are going to make them beautiful, they are going to become beautiful landscape in the city, and that is exactly what Olusosun is now… They will become beautiful recreational parks soon.”

But more than a year after, Olusosun remained the exact opposite of a golf course or recreational park.

It was a filthy ‘course’ dotted by stacks of sickening excreta, heaps of stinking refuse and an atmosphere reeking of cigarette and hemp.

Stashed between thoe mountainous stacks of decaying refuse were wooden tables bearing on-sale odds and ends; grungy mattresses on which hungry and homeless young men and women passed their nights; and some scruffy bowls bearing food for the purchase of casual workers.

The dump hill also had a night club of its own, according a resident of the area.