A Postcolonial Political Ecology of Urban Waste, Governance Failure, and Scalar Politics in Kano Metropolis

Urban waste in Kano Metropolis in Nigeria's North West geopolitical zone is not merely a technical management challenge but a politicised socio-material system whose production, accumulation, and contested governance reflect postcolonial institutional legacies, multi-scalar political struggles, and the material inequalities of informal economy urbanism. This study applies a postcolonial political ecology framework to analyse urban waste as a socio-material phenomenon in Kano, examining waste generation dynamics, governance architectures, informal sector waste economies, and the scalar politics of waste responsibility. The theoretical contribution integrates postcolonial urban studies, metabolic urbanism, political ecology of urban environments, and science and technology studies to theorise waste governance as a site where colonial institutional sedimentations, national urban policy failures, and everyday community practices intersect. The research design employs a multi-method approach over 20 months of fieldwork including waste characterisation surveys, participant observation with waste collection workers and informal scavengers, interviews with 75 waste governance actors across state, local government, private sector, NGO, and community levels, and quantitative analysis of waste flow data from Kaduna State Environmental Protection Authority records. Discourse analysis of waste governance policy documents and political speeches examines how responsibility for urban waste is narratively constructed and contested at different scales. Results demonstrate that Kano's waste crisis is systematically reproduced by a governance architecture that externalises costs to low-income communities while creating rent-seeking opportunities for politically connected waste management contractors. The informal waste economy, while invisible in official accounts, performs approximately 35 percent of the city's effective waste diversion function. This study makes foundational contributions to postcolonial urban political ecology methodology. Keywords: postcolonial political ecology, urban waste, governance, Kano Metropolis, North West Nigeria.