Residents of Lagos and Nigerians in other states of the country have become perturbed due to the incidence of building collapse in Lagos state which have become very alarming. The state recently recorded over 100 collapsed building in eleven years. On Sunday, a seven story building at the Oniru in Lekki collapsed. Two persons were immediately confirmed dead and about 3 other persons were said to be recovered.

In 2022, so far, 5 cases of building collapse have been reported in Lagos involving over 25 casualties. The most recent case occurred  barely a month after the previous case which was recorded in August in Bariga where 2 deaths and 3 ghastly injuries were reported. Earlier, a two-story-building had collapsed in Bariga area with no casualty recorded in May and a three-story-building collapsed in Ebutemeta area in February with 10 casualties reported. The last case that capped the 2021 building collapse in the state occurred in November where over 40 persons reportedly died in the collapse of 21-story-building.

“An average of 4.8 collapses have occurred within the past 5 years and cases have been more intense in Lagos Island and Ebute Meta area” Nairametrics reported. The recent collapse that occurred in Lekki made it the fifth collapse in Lagos so far this year.

the Vanguard reported that the seven-story building was sealed on February 18, 2021 by officials of Lagos State Building Control  Agency, LASBCA but the developer defied and continued with the project. In the news report, it was said that an eye witness at the scene said the building was giving distress vibrations for a couple of minutes before it went down slowly, noting that about 30 escaped before the collapse.

The collapse incidence in Lagos state has been attributed to a number of factors such as high number of old and dilapidated buildings in affected regions, gas explosion, heavy rains, poor construction by developers and negligence of regulatory agencies in ensuring accountability of the construction workers. The most important factors have been identified as poor construction at 36 percent, followed by old buildings at 20 percent, according to Nairametrics analysis.

It was reported that the Lagos Government had earlier issued a directive to the Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority (LASPPPA) to stop receiving applications for approval of buildings above three floors in Ebutemeta. This decision, according to Dr. Idrius Solake, Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, was informed by poor soil and topography level as well as low water levels in the area that made it impossible to erect buildings above 3 floors in the area. The commissioner has tendered his resignation today In less than 24 hours after the Lekki building collapse.

Granting interview to TVC breakfast on Monday, 8 am, Mr Bamidele Onalaja, Chairman of Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) said the developer at the site, whose identity has yet to be unravelled, could not be confirmed as a member of REDAN.

Liz Truss is the incoming prime minister of the United Kingdom. When the UK cooked for Boris Johnson and he could not handle it, I predicted on July 7 that Ms Truss could become the next leader. That call has just been validated with her ascension.

Read the piece: ‘“When Boris resigned, I scanned the whole United Kingdom and the only leader I felt was possibly going to become the new Prime Minister was Ms Truss. I had dropped her as the new potential new Prime Minister. British politics is highly predictable as they elect for the “moment”‘.

Looking at her performance in the foreign desk, she could be as tough as Margaret Thatcher. However, her main job now will be to ensure that the UK does not derail economically.

Liz Truss will be Britain’s next prime minister after she was elected leader of the ruling Conservative Party on Monday, ending a race to succeed the scandal-tarnished Boris Johnson.

Truss, 47, has served as foreign secretary and was the clear front-runner for the job. She clinched victory by appealing to the right-wing party faithful as a tax-cutting, anti-“woke” candidate who would take a hard line on post-Brexit dealings with the European Union.

She inherits a country facing a dire winter energy crisis, widespread strikes and economic recession — as well as long-term questions about the erosion of its cherished public services and its status as a world power after Brexit. Those issues were largely absent from discussion in the two-month leadership race, which saw her defeat former finance minister Rishi Sunak by 57% to 43% in the final runoff.

As I Posited, Liz Truss Makes The Finals To Replace Boris Johnson with Implications for Ukraine

In this response on ancient Yoruba’s number system (the 256 Odu coding), I explained that had  Africans (within the region of sub-Sahara)  invented writing at scale, most of the things associated with deep spirituality would have been accepted as science and a component of natural philosophy. But with knowledge passed from generation to generation orally, there were limited ways to develop, challenge and advance fundamental concepts. Consequently,  anything future generations could not understand was explained away with “spirituality”. Before Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system as explained in his famous l’Arithmétique Binaire, the Ifa Odu had existed for centuries, even before the reign of Oduduwa in the 7th century AD.

Read the comment here and my response below

My Response: The Odu number system can be looked at from two angles: spiritual and scientific. The Yorubas because of lack of writing invention kept the spiritual but lost the scientific. If you look at the earliest works of Pythagoras, you would accuse him of serving Athena, the Greek goddess of knowledge. But because he wrote and explained, we accepted most as the basis of natural philosophy. Without writing, it would be folklores as with Yoruba’s Odu coding.

al-Khwarizmi – the father of algebra — was a highly religious man. He ran the house of wisdom and was a devout religious man in Baghdad. But as he started writing, he explained what later became the foundation of algebra even though he was known as the puzzle solver in Mecca and Medina.

My point is this: had the Yorubas invented writing, the Odu coding could have entered the large sphere of natural philosophy and demystified spirituality. Think about it: if Euclid had not written his works on geometry, it would have been all spiritual to many. In FUTO, students call ODE [ordinary differential equation] “o di egwu” which in Igbo means something mystical and challenging.

Tell the high priest to write what he does as an equation, some spirituality will evolve to science!

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment 1: Indeed, we call on historians and researchers of like-minded to first unravel the History of Yoruba from unlettered time to modern time. The present folklore and taboo are unacceptable. Then Odu-Ifa Corpuscle is a body of knowledge to be studied scientifically. When I was in China, there was an advert where an institute was looking for a core Odu-Ifa practitioner to collaborate to study along with Taoism. But, back at home, we relegate this body of knowledge as archaic.

Comment 2: Odu ifa has been in existence for many centuries. It survived colonialism, and up till today it’s still being used in many countries like Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago; the Carribbean generally.

The bottom line is that what is not written or documented, no matter how good or powerful cannot be developed, efficiently utilized and transferred. This is where Africa largely missed it.

Even, in Christianity, God’s spoken words had to be written down (on tablets, scrolls etc), and that is why it can be transferred, developed, efficiently utilized and even made more powerful. Even Jesus would say ‘For it is written’…

The same thing is happening with so many herbal and alternative remedies that are all over the place. I am yet to come across any compendium for these local solutions.. Sadly, Africans perish with their knowledge and discoveries instead of passing it on..

For Odu Ifa, I know there have been some works on it by some Nigerian scholars and professors but the question is ‘are Nigeria youths willing to learn it, will parents allow their kids to learn it?’ These are the things that the Chinese treasure so much and keep teaching their children from inception, and they are better for it.

The Yoruba’s 256 Odu number system