Lagos State governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Saturday blamed the collapse of the 7- storey building on First Avenue, in Banana Island, Ikoyi, on what he called “reckless” operations of some developers hiding under the pretext of Federal Government agencies issuing building approval.
Sanwo-Olu made this known when he led a delegation of government officials on the spot assessment of the incident, describing the situation as “irresponsible and unacceptable.”
The governor, was led on the inspection by the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Tayo Bamigbose-Martin; Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso; General Manager, Lagos State Building Control Agency, LABSCA, Gbolahan Oki, and other engineers.
This was just as Governor Sanwo-Olu, who was on the inspection tour which lasted for more than four hours, also ordered the demolition of a number of buildings considered to have structural defects and others that were built under powerline.
Sanwo-Olu, while addressing reporters during the inspection, Sanwo-Olu said a lot of investigations were ongoing on, noting that it was already discovered that unapproved extensions were sighted based on the report.
The governor, however, hinted that sanctions would be applied, even as he disclosed that an external committee had been set up and “given two weeks to independently ascertain what has gone wrong here and they should finish the work towards the end of next week.”
“You can see that the original line for Banana Island is even not here, it is a way in front and you can see that here is several extensions granted by both Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and NIWA. These are the two Federal agencies that have been culpable for those extensions. They have done these extensions without our knowledge.
“We have responsibility for building approval. All of the four buildings at the back, they never got our approval. This is illegality that is real and that is why we are going round the properties,” the governor said.
“The excuses that have been given that they don’t have access is not acceptable. It is total recklessness by all the developers and the officers that are culpable will also be sanctioned.
“But what we are doing now is, we have set up an external committee who are given two weeks to independently ascertain what has gone wrong here and they should finish the work towards the end of next week. This will further strengthen our hands to be able to come up with a robust work plan that we can enforce going forward.
“It is heartbroken each time we have to go through this and it shows how irresponsible both the developers, some of our citizens that just want to make quick money and of course our officers who are not alive to their responsibility.
“We have had to change staff here and there so that we can bring forward robust and very strong monitoring offices but we are still short of it, I must say. We need to do what we have to do to keep the lives of our citizens safe at all times,” he added.
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