The rotting piles have been building for months. Now they spill into traffic lanes on major roads across four South-West states. Drivers in Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti, and Ogun are swerving around mountains of household waste.
Pedestrians hold their breath walking past. This is not a rural problem.
The garbage is blocking key routes that connect cities and towns. Market traders trying to move goods are stuck in longer travel times. Families heading to school or work find their usual shortcuts blocked by refuse heaps that narrow the usable road space.
The practical cost is measured in frustration, lost hours, and health risks from rotting garbage baking in the open air. What happened to the waste collection systems?
In plain terms, they appear to have broken down or become overwhelmed. When trash trucks stop coming on a regular schedule, residents are left with few options. The roads become the default dumping ground.
The mounds grow gradually, day by day, until they are too big to ignore. Environmental advocates have warned this crisis was coming. Inadequate waste management infrastructure was always going to lead here.
Now the garbage piles are not just an eyesore. They block drainage systems.
They create physical hazards for motorists and pedestrians navigating around enormous stacks of trash that spill into traffic lanes. The severity varies by location. Reporters who documented the situation across the region found refuse piles that have accumulated over time.
In some areas, the waste has grown so large it significantly cuts into the road. Drivers and pedestrians now treat these mounds as permanent obstacles.
No coordinated cleanup plan has been announced by local authorities. For ordinary commuters who rely on these roads daily, the situation is becoming untenable. The heaps are not confined to isolated stretches.
They appear on major thoroughfares that link cities and towns across Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti, and Ogun. This means the problem touches everyone — from traders transporting goods to families going about their daily lives. The mounds of trash sit there, rotting in the sun.
They block drainage. They narrow roads.
They create hazards. And so far, no one in authority has said what will be done about it. The garbage keeps piling up.
