Last week Wednesday, March 13, a three-storey building housing a primary school collapsed at Massey Street in the Ita-Faji area of the state. According to reports, over 20 people, including no fewer than 12 pupils of the school died, while another 45 persons were said to have sustained various injuries and are being treated in hospitals.
According to reports, the building, at 63 Massey Street, had already being marked for demolition by officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency. However, the occupants with the connivance of corrupt state building control agency officials frustrated the demolition until the building eventually caved in.
Shortly after, the Lagos state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode visited the scene and pledged to ensure that all buildings that have failed integrity test in the area are demolished to forestall a repeat of the unfortunate incidence. True to his words, on Friday March 15, bulldozers roared into the area and began demolishing buildings already marked for demolition.
As salutary as the governor’s swift actions and responses were, they were not enough and are rather symptomatic of everything that is wrong with us as a country – a country that is always reactive rather than proactive and a country where there is absolutely no accountability and no one is held to account no matter the grievousness of his/her action.
The state has a building control agency that should assess the integrity of buildings and ensure that those that have failed are demolished to prevent such collapses and loss of lives. In this instance, the agency did carry out its function and correctly marked the building for demolition. Then the Nigerian condition set in. The agency could not proceed to demolish the building and a school continued to operate in the building even when it was visible to all that it was only a matter of time before the building caves in.
Sadly, in the state government’s response so far, there have been no questions asked as to why the building and several others were not demolished before it caved in. There’s no investigation ongoing to determine all those who failed in their duty or are complicit in the collapse of the building and the loss of innocent lives, and there will certainly be no state official or private individual prosecuted for negligence of duty, corruption or circumvention of the law that led to the building collapse.
No, none of these will happen. The governor just came, offered some platitudes, ordered demolition of marked buildings, possibly offered to offset medical bills of those injured and that will be the end of the matter. Meanwhile, all those complicit in the building collapse will retain their jobs, will go scot free and will even move on to occupy higher offices and positions of authority and trust. They will be more emboldened to subvert the law and the common good knowing full well that there will be no consequences for bad behaviour. What is more, those down the ladder or those trying to do the right thing will see that there is no incentive for doing right and no cost for doing the wrong thing and will sooner than later join the corrupt and decadent gang, who have stocked years of impunity and corruption under their belt but are the most successful and rich. That has been the story of Nigeria and that is exactly why the country is the way it is: a haven for impunity.
The result is that Nigeria is becoming a classical Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature where life has become nasty, brutish and short! May God help us!
