Lagos Building Collapse, The Untold Story

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L-R: Lagos Commissioner for Physical Planning & Urban Development, Dr. Idris Salako; Permanent Secretary, Lagos Ministry of Health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye; Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu; his Deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat and Commissioner for Special Duties & Inter-Government Relations, Mr Tayo Bamgbose-Martins during the Governor’s media briefing at the site of the Ikoyi building collapse on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021
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(Last Updated On: 2021-11-09)

 

.Developers, Property Owners Circumvent  Building Laws

.Some Government Officials Corrupt Acts

.Indifference Leadership of Supervising Agencies 

.Deputy Governor Contradict LASBCA 

.Most Bank Branches Have No Approval 

 

By Femi Akinola  

 

Around 3pm on Monday, November 1, 2011, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) FourScore Homes, Femi Osibona had scheduled a meeting with his clients. He was said to have called on his business associate, Wale Bob-Oseni who was reportedly on his way to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos to catch a US flight. The latter rushed to see Osibona who was waiting to see him inside a 21 storey-building that was under construction. 

Osibona has shown Bob – Oseni what he wanted him to see on the 8th floor inside the building. Oseni was in a hurry to be at the airport as quickly as possible. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and a blackout, the 21 storey tower which was 80% complete had been let out falling like packs of badly arranged cards. Osibona, Bob-Oseni and several other people who were in the building at that moment were buried underneath the rubbles.

Luckily for very few, they escaped being buried by the rubbles by whiskers. The state government swung into action to rescue those under the rubbles. While the rescue operation was on-going, barely 24 hours after the collapse of the 21 storey building on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, another building under construction in that axis, a two-storey partially caved in at Osapa London, Lekki, after a heavy downpour the previous night.

After the rescue operation had reached ground zero, no fewer than 40 casualties were recorded from the collapsed 21 storey building. Osibona, the property owner and his friend Bob-Oseni who was on his way to the airport enroute US when he was called on phone perished in the collapsed building. A 26 year old woman, Zainab Sanni Oyindamola, posted  for the mandatory one year  National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) at FourScore Home Limited was also a victim. The state government declared three days of mourning over this tragic incident. All flags were flown at half-mast in public and private buildings while official engagements were cancelled by the government. 

It is unfortunate that building collapse still happened in Lagos state despite all the measures, rules and regulations put in place by the state government to put an end to it. Lagos is still witnessing building collapse because the supervising agencies, Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development (MPPUD) and the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) failed in their duties and responsibilities.

The collapse of this 21 storey-building is not the first in Lagos this year. On July 8, 2021, a three storey building at 19, Church Street, Lagos Island, collapsed at 10.55am. This building had been marked for not passing integrity tests due to visible cracks on the beam and its columns. LASBCA failed to enforce the rules after the building failed an integrity test. Also this year, a two -storey building under construction in Ikorodu, a suburb of Lagos, collapsed and killed the owner identified as Daniel Obosi.

The building located at 77 Tapa Road, Oke-Ojo, Isawo-Ikorodu, collapsed around 2pm. The cause of the collapse of this building is glaring to non-professional builders. It was an attachment to the main building. The land on which the building was constructed was a sand filled area and the property owner did not give needed time for the sand filled land to compact properly before he started construction. Use of poor building materials was attributed by people in the neighbourhood as the reason why the building collapsed.

For a long time, Lagos has been inundated with devastating building collapse. For example, on June 6th, 2011, a four storey building at 4 Mogaji Street, Lagos Island, collapsed with no fewer than 18 people died from the incident. On September 12th, 2014, Nigeria and Africa were thrown into mourning due to the collapse of The Synagogue,Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in Ikotun – Egbe area of  Alimosho Local Government Area.

The collapse of the SCOAN building claimed 116 lives who were mostly South African that visited Nigeria for spiritual cleansing. Later, Lagos State Government sued SCOAN and till date, nothing significant has come out of the action taken by the State Government. None among government officials that monitored construction of the collapsed buildings within SCOAN have been questioned to explain what went wrong.

It is as a result of indifference on the part of  the supervising MPPUD to call leadership of LASBCA to order that led to subsequent building collapses. Thus, on March 8, 2016, a six storey building under construction in Lekki district collapsed and at least 34 people perished in that avoidable ugly incident. After this horrible incident, Lagosians believe the State Government through the MPPUD and LASBCA will right the wrongs by ensuring proper monitoring of construction of multistoried buildings across the state. However,  the latest building collapse in Lagos shows the government still handles building collapse issue with kid gloves.

It is the responsibility of the Ministry of  Physical Planning and Urban  Development  in Lagos State to ensure any building across the state must get a permit before embarking on erecting any building structure in the state and monitor the construction till the completion and issued approval.  

APNews investigations revealed that on several occasions, not what was approved by the State authority to build are later built by land owners, business house, hotels, including corporate organisations.

The investigations further revealed that there used to be deliberate contraventions by property owners including the contractors in the real estate industry which usually lead to building collapse. It is a known fact known to top MPPUD and LASBCA officials that landowners encourage illegal constructions, they are aware of activities of quacks in building industry and irresponsible government officials that take bribe from developers, contractors and property owners to enable them contravened rules guiding building and construction of houses and other structures in Lagos State. 

It was discovered that many among the high rise buildings that dotted Lagos space exist without approval and Certificate – of – Occupancy from the State government. Owners of several buildings in Lagos State did not even bother to process approval before erecting structures to ascertain the likely structural designs suitable for the land where the construction is taking place. Findings also revealed that officials of the MPPUD  or LASBCA used to visit construction sites, marking buildings under construction with X-red colour marks. Once the property owner, builder or developer can ‘settle’ the officials, the construction will continue even without permit in most cases.

Former Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development in Lagos State, Town Planner Abosede affirmed corruption among some field officers in the ministry during the yearly ministerial press briefing at the State Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, in 2011. He said for 2010/2011, the MPPUD discovered that of 1,653 banks branches in Lagos State, particularly Lagos metropolis, only 100 have approved building plan while 1,325 banks buildings did not obtain approval before constructing the buildings.

Though he explained that the government knew the implication of such acts but, not in a hurry to sanction any of the defaulting banks. According to him, sanctioning these banks for not obtaining approval before building their branches and putting them into use by members of the public would be misunderstood by the public and the international community. Consequently, the government kept silent on the issue and looked the other way. This act is clear evidence of culpability of the state government in building collapse in Lagos.

Whenever building collapses in Lagos, top government officials will react sharply against the incident but, it was observed that during that period of mourning, whatever they said the government will do to ensure building collapse did not happen again are mere political statements which the government won’t fulfill. For example, after the collapse of the four storey building at Mogaji Street, Lagos Island, in 2011, then Special Adviser to governor Babatunde Fashola on Central Business District (CBD), Mrs. Derin Disu, described the incident as another tragedy and regrettable. She promised that the State Government was going to take drastic solution to the incessant building collapse in Lagos saying, “if the need be, any building found to be weak in the Island would be pulled down after the on-going fitness test on building being carried out by the government.” 

Between that time and the moment, nothing of such has taken place at Lagos Island whereas there are so many distressed multi-storey building occupied by lots of people on the island including Ebute-Metta West and East in Lagos Mainland. Quite a lot of  such distressed buildings marked for demolition and sealed in the mentioned areas are still occupied by residents till the moment.

When the Deputy-Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat visited the scene of the collapsed building last week Tuesday that the building which was under construction had earlier been sealed for four consecutive months (July -November 2021) because LASBCA came in to do structural test “and saw some anomalies and shut it down with demand that those things should be corrected.” 

Hamzat quickly debunked the claim by LASBCA  General Manager  Mr. Gbolahan Oki who earlier claimed 15 floors was approved for the building. He never bothered to tell the public who authorised re-opening of the building sealed by LASBCA.

The deputy governor simply said, “This particular building that collapsed was approved for 21 floors three years ago.” 

The contradiction between the deputy-governor’s number of approved floors of the collapsed building and that of LASBCA general manager is proof that there is no effective coordination between the supervising ministry and LASBCA. 

One then wonders what the ‘Centre of Excellence’ is all about, if a 21 storey building in the high brow Ikoyi area of the megacity will collapse as a result of indifference and negligence of leadership of the supervising ministry and agency?

According to APNews source at the seat of the state government, the collapsed building was once sealed by LASBCA in order to prevent a recurrence of what happened at Lekki Garden Estate on March 8, 2016, where a six-storey building collapsed. The questions begging for answer are what warranted unsealing of the collapsed building and indefinite suspension of LASBCA boss? 

Our findings revealed that Gbolahan Oki who was an Architect became LASBCA General Manager in February this year. He was formerly in charge of Lagos Resilience Office (LASRO) before the appointment. The construction of the collapsed building started long before his appointment. Responses from Vox-pop conducted by APNews pointed to one direction on Oki’s statement that approval issued to FourScore Homes project was for 15 and not 21 floors surreptitiously indicted himself and LASBCA.

Also, people suspected that the sudden indefinite suspension of Gbolahan Oki was one way to keep his mouth shut on the collapsed building. Kunle Uthman Esq, a legal practitioner reacted to the building collapse thus: “This incident is a shame of a nation state, its unwarranted, unsolicited, irresponsible, insensitive, unfair and indeed criminal.” He said the most sensitive question are – who ordered the reopening of the collapsed building after it was sealed by LASBCA?  Why did the deputy-governor have to contradict the LASBCA general manager?

A resident of Lekki Phase 1, Abdulrahman Agbaje berated the state government’s action after the building collapse. He said rather than embarking on  setting days for mourning of the departed souls, it is better the governor ensure all the bad eggs among officials of  MPPUD and LASBCA be thrown out and replaced with workers who are ready to be responsible and save lives.

He said, “We can see that the state government has been trying to address the environmental pollution that is gradually drowning  the serenity of Ikoyi. However, it is high time for the government not to make no pretence about its resolve to nip building collapse in the bud anywhere across the state and stop any act of lawlessness with regards to the burgeoning  real estate business in the  Lekki-Ikoyi axis.”

He went on to say there is no gainsaying that the once serene pricey Ikoyi has now gave way to a boisterous noisy landscape largely occupied by the super rich who  believe they are above the  building laws of the State and can construct any type of structure and design without adhering to building laws of the state.

 

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