A 21 storey building collapsed yesterday been the 1st day of November, 2021 at about 14:00. What a sad way to start the new month.
The awful cite of a 21 storey high building site crumbling and turning into a heap of gravel, trapping an estimate of about 50 persons including the owner of the building, the contractors, the site supervisors, the Engineers, the bricklayers, the workers and other persons who were unfortunate to be at the building at that point.
Some have been rescued while some have been dragged out dead out of the building and more people are still trapped in the building 18 hours later.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 14 (June 3 – Sept 2, 2024) begins registrations; get massive discounts with early registration here.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
This is not the first time a building is collapsing in Lagos state and unfortunately won’t be the last for this reason what went wrong and what is the spiritual forces or the supernatural forces pushing down buildings, trapping people inside and killing people in Nigeria, Lagos state in particular.
The General Manager, Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Mr Gbolahan Oki, who has it as a statutory duty to regulate buildings in Lagos state and his agency is tasked with the simple duty to make sure that buildings erected in Lagos state conform to laid down standard.
The General manager stated that the owner of the collapsed 21-storey building, under construction in Ikoyi, was given approval to build only 15 floors but went ahead to erect 21 storey mansion and that the materials used in building the mansion are inferior materials.
This statement by Mr. Gbolahan Oki while he was obviously trying to shift blames clearly begs the questions; when the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) found out that the builders of the house have flaunted the approval given to them by adding five more floors on top of the fifteen floors approved did they arrest the builders and mandate them to stop work unless they stick to the 15 floors storey they got approval for or did the Nigeria factor happen and the builders bribed their ways from 15th floor to the 21st floor till it came crashing?
While we blame Nigerians for always finding ways to cut corners even at the detriment of lives, Nigerian agencies must stick to doing their jobs and enforcing what they have been mandated to do and shun greed, bribes and corruptions if not more buildings will keep collapsing and we will keep losing more innocent lives.