Since the Monday collapse of the 21-storey building under construction on Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State, residents have been forced to take sides due largely to the conflicting information that has been coming out.
There’s no doubt that the collapse is one too many, and some of the residents, who have aired their views on social media, wonder where the owner of the collapsed 360 Degrees Towers is at the moment. Is he trapped under the rubble and likely dead as reports indicate? Or has he been arrested, as it is being speculated in some quarters? Some others feel that history is about to repeat itself like in the case of the Lekki Gardens in March of 2016 where a six-storey building under construction similarly collapsed and till date, no one has been brought to book.
So far, the Lagos State government seems to be on top of the matter, with both Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his Deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, visiting the seen for on the spot assessment. The governor has even set up a panel to investigate the collapse and submit a report in 30 days. Findings of which the governor vows to make public.
Sanwo-Olu has earned praise for these actions. Not so much his deputy, who seemed to be holding brief for the developer of the building during his visit when he was quoted in the media as saying that work on the building had been suspended earlier and that it was the issues the developer was working on when the building caved.
According to The Punch newspaper, Hamzat said the builders “were making corrective actions when this happened” and “at the time this happened, they were not really constructing.”
The paper added that “his making excuses for the builders, when a proper investigation has not been conducted, is not reassuring”.
Which buttresses what the aforementioned residents are saying that history is merely repeating itself. And, that, when will those who have caused the loss of life in the state due to negligence resulting in building collapse be brought to book?
Lekki Gardens again comes to mind. On March 8, 2016, a six-storey building owned by a real estate firm Lekki Gardens collapsed, killing several people. Lekki Gardens Estate reported that five people died in the incident as against the official figure of 34 casualties. But there have been other incidences of building collapse.
Official figures put the casualties at 25 when a four-storey residential block of flats collapsed on July 18, 2006 at Ebute-Meta, Lagos. Yet another occurred on 13 March 2019, when a three-storey building in the Ita Faaji area of Lagos, suffered a structural failure, killing 20 people and leaving over 40 trapped.
And the one that takes the cake with 115 people dead happened on 12 September 2014, when a guesthouse located within the Synagogue Church of all Nations (SCOAN) premises around the Ikotun-Egbe area of Lagos State collapsed completely to the ground. Although the case is in court, no one has been held accountable six years and counting.
Some point to the suspension of the General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency, Gbolahan Oki, as just one more step in the right direction but insist that people must be held accountable. They say he is just the face of the massive rot in Lagos urban planning and much more decisive action needs to be taken by government to end further disaster.
Less than 24 hours after the Ikoyi collapse, another building went down in Lekki, Lagos State. Fortunately, no one has been reported dead in the latest incident.
As can be gleaned from the above, many incidents of building collapse have occurred in Lagos which is working to cement it’s aspiration to become a megacity. For this to happen, the incidents of building collapses must end. Most importantly, this recent incident must not be another Lekki Garden fiasco with no resolution, closure or punishment.