A leadership academy in Lagos has opened a biodigester facility at a public toilet on Ojota Bus Stop, aiming to cut open defecation in the city while generating clean energy from human waste.
The scheme, dubbed "Pee-Po-to-Power Lagos" (WEEP), is run by the Lateef Jakande Leadership Academy (LJLA) and centres on a 30-cubic-metre anaerobic biodigester — described by project lead Dr Bamidele Yokan Thomas as one of the largest built for a public sanitation project in Nigeria. The unit is designed to process waste from at least 350 users a day, with effluent passed through filtration before discharge.
Ojota was chosen as the pilot site due to its heavy foot traffic and an existing public toilet block that could be upgraded rather than built from scratch. Head of Projects Hamzat Sirajudeen said the team benchmarked international sanitation models, including from India, before settling on the anaerobic digestion approach as the best fit for Lagos conditions. He added that the system should stretch septic tank emptying intervals from roughly every two weeks to potentially several years, cutting both maintenance costs and pollution.
Renovation of the toilet block was carried out by Boff Construction Limited, with El-Fad Concepts responsible for installing the biodigester.
Beyond sanitation, organisers see a community energy angle: biogas from the unit will reportedly be supplied free to women food vendors near Ojota, displacing their use of charcoal and other fossil fuels. Co-lead Shalom Ernest said later phases could see the gas converted to electricity to power the facility itself and nearby public infrastructure.
The launch coincided with a 10km "Walk Against Open Defecation," run from Allen Avenue to Ojota, with organisers expecting 500–700 participants. Partnerships lead Oluwatosin Alabi framed the walk as part of a wider behaviour-change push, and said the project ties into UN Sustainable Development Goals and Lagos State's THEMES Agenda, with hopes of rolling the model out to other public facilities across the state.
Lagos pilot turns public toilet waste into biogas as part of sanitation drive
