*Promises those found culpable will be sanctioned
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Saturday, blamed the collapse of the seven-storey building on First Avenue, Banana Island, Ikoyi, due to state officers who were not alive to their responsibilities and recklessness of some developers, hiding under the pretext of Federal Government agencies issuing building approval.
Sanwo-Olu made the remark when he led a delegation of government officials on the spot assessment of the incident, describing the situation as “irresponsible and unacceptable.”
Sanwo-Olu was led on the inspection by the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Tayo Bamigbose-Martin, Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, General Manager, Lagos State Building Control Agency, LABSCA, Gbolahan Oki, and other engineers.
The Governor on the inspection, which lasted for more than four hours also ordered the demolition or sealing of a number of buildings considered to have structural defects or built under powerline.
Speaking during the inspection, Sanwo-Olu said: “Like has been reported before now, the investigation is going on, but you can see that they are still clearing the rubble from the collapsed building.
“The exercise, we are doing today is not just about this location. The extent of what I would call unapproved extensions. We are at the back of the land that is aborting the lagoon. You can see that the original line for Banana Island is not even here, it is way in front and you can see that there are several extensions granted by both the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA). These are the two federal agencies that have been culpable for the extensions. They have done these extensions without our knowledge.
“We have responsibility for building approval. All of the four buildings at the back never got our approval. This is an illegality that is real and that is why we are going around the properties.
“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 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.”
