By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Following last Monday’s collapse of a 21-storey building in Ikoyi, Lagos State, there are indications that workers may have deserted high-rise buildings still under construction in the highbrow areas of the metropolis.
Checks by ThisNigeria on some construction sites in Ikoyi, Lekki, and Victoria Island on Saturday revealed that the once-bubbling construction sites have become deserted, an indication that the workers may have commenced work-to-rule to save themselves from further calamity.
No fewer than 38 workers have been declared dead in the high-rise building that collapsed on Gerard Road in the upscale Ikoyi neighbourhood last week, and the state government is still not sure on the list of the missing.
However, a drive through town over the weekend showed that many high-rise buildings had been deserted by construction workers who were afraid that another of the ugly incidents would recur.
Those interviewed vented their anger on the Gerard Road incident to which state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had admitted that ‘mistakes were made from all angles’.
“We are afraid for our lives…the Ikoyi problem is still there,” a labourer, who was seen milling around, said at one of the sites in Lekki.
At a close range to the Gerard Road collapse site in Ikoyi on Wednesday, workers and neighbours appealed to the reporter, “maybe you people will help us out, it is becoming too much.”
Sanwo-Olu harped on the lack of adequate records at the Gerrard Road site, which limited the ability of the authorities to determine, off-hand, who was alive, missing, or still trapped in the rubble.
The reporter sighted a copy of such manifest in an uncompleted building at a mosque near the intersections of Onitolo Road/Alexander Road/Milverton Road “which are supposed to be kept by all contractors on building sites.
It showed columns detailing the names of workers, their e-mail addresses (for those who have one), particulars of their next-of-kin and home addresses, among others.
Rescue workers had a hellish time using heavy-duty escalators to pull dead bodies out of the basement of the collapsed structure which was badly constructed, ‘even to the naked eye’.
The state government has apologised ‘with deepest condolences for the casualties and to families, and it appears that it would now have to go far beyond pledges to redeem the spate of collapsing buildings now seemingly rampant in the state.
Lagos is no stranger to deadly building collapses that have claimed hundreds of lives and it seems the endless resources poured in by way of intellectual exercises and professional engagements to halt the trend have been going down the drain.
In March 2016, a five-storey building under construction collapsed in the Lekki area of Lagos, killing 34 people, while 13 others were rescued.
In 2019, a three-storey building collapsed in the Ita-Faji area of Lagos Island. More than 20 people, including school children, reportedly died in that incident.
Between 2005 and 2020, about 152 buildings reportedly collapsed in Lagos, while over 4,000 families were rendered homeless, with the highest number of cases reported in 2011 when about 19 buildings, most of the commercial, collapsed in the state.
In recent times, the same scenario has been replicated. On Tuesday, October 20, one person was confirmed dead, three trapped and two rescued when a two-storey building collapsed in Lagos in Ikorodu, Lagos State at about 10pm
A resident said immediately the incident reported that in the absence of timely rescue service neighbours had to mobilise and try to rescue the victims before the arrival of fire service officials, “who could not do much because due to the unavailability of equipment to lift the rumble”.
Also earlier in the month, precisely on November 2, 2021, a two-storey building collapsed in Lekki, Lagos, barely 24 hours after the collapse of the 21-storey building on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi.
The Lekki collapse occurred in the Osapa London area of the suburb. It was reported that the building under construction partially caved in after a heavy downpour last Monday.
Residents have been wondering that the various reports have been tumbling in, even though the agencies established to monitor building development are proliferated in Lagos.
These regulatory agencies include Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority, (LSPPPA); Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Lagos State Safety Commission (LSSC), and Lagos State Material Testing Laboratory (LSMTL).
Criticisms have also been trailing the multi-sectoral search and rescue operation efforts often embarked upon by, and led by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
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In most cases, the same construction giants, like Julius Berger, Craneburg, HiTech, and China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) are almost always involved.
On Tuesday, Sanwo-Olu announced the indefinite suspension of the General Manager of LASBCA, Mr. Gbolahan Oki, an architect.
The governor also set up a six-member independent investigation panel made up of professional builders, town planners, structural engineers, and legal practitioners, to probe the remote and immediate causes of the building collapse.
The panel is also to ascertain, among others, whether there was a compromise of the building codes by the developer, its contractor, and statutory regulatory agencies, as well as whether there was full compliance with physical planning and building materials laws of the state.
It is also to determine whether there were supervisory or oversight lapses on the part of regulatory agencies. The panel, which has 30 days to submit its report, will make necessary recommendations to guard against a repeat of similar incidents in the future.
