The lives of Nigerian citizens are becoming more worthless with each passing day. Scores of lives are lost in avoidable accidents and sometimes through deliberate actions and inactions of those whose major duty is protection of lives and property.
The media is awash with stories about deaths arising from accidental discharges from security agents’ guns, road crashes, ritual killings, building collapse, terrorists’ activities and several others. Government seems to have lost the main essence of its existence. Today, people just die like chicken, and nobody cares. In Nigeria, government is on perpetual holiday in its responsibilities to the citizens!
The endless incidences of building collapse in many parts of the country, particularly, Lagos, have become worrisome.
“I am deeply saddened by the loss of precious lives in the collapse of a building in Lagos Island today (Wednesday March 13, 2019). Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in this unfortunate incident. Our response team is doing everything possible to rescue more people and provide medical attention to survivors,” @ Akinwunmi Ambode.
These were the exact words of prayer and sympathy on the twitter handle of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, of Lagos State, a few minutes after inspecting the scene of the unfortunate incident of building collapse that occurred at Itafaji Street, off Apatira, Lagos Island area of Lagos State.
This disaster, which threw the nation into mourning, occurred around 10:00 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2019, when a three-storey building, just opposite the signpost for Apatira Street caved in and trapped over 120 school children under the ages of 10 as well as other occupants of the building. The 120 trapped school children were pupils of Ohen Nursery and Primary School, which occupied the third floor of the collapsed building.
A few hours after the unfortunate incident, many Nigerians, including those in government took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to pray for the successful rescue of the trapped children and to mourn those who were found dead.
Governor Ambode was reported to have been pelted with numerous sachets of water by angry Lagosians, when he arrived the scene of the incident a couple of hours later.
Apart from the Governor of Lagos State, the Presidency also took to Twitter handle to console Nigerians and the families of the victims. President Muhammadu Buhari wrote this on his twitter handle on the evening of that fateful day:
“I’m extremely saddened by the news of the collapsed building in Itafaaji area of Lagos. It touches one to lose precious lives in any kind of mishap, particularly those so young and tender. May God grant everyone affected by this sad incident fortitude and succour. I charge the Lagos State Government to do all that is needful so that such tragic developments do not recur,” @MBuhari.
Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded election also wrote this on his Twitter handle:
“My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of pupils caught up in the collapse of the three-storey building at Ita Faji, Lagos Island. No resource should be spared in rescuing the trapped and treating the injured,” @atiku.
The above mentioned condolence messages were the few selected from many of such heartfelt and mind-blowing messages that made the rounds on twitter, other social media platforms, online news platforms and on the pages of the national dailies, 24 hours after the fatal incident occurred in Lagos.
Beyond the gush of sympathetic words and of mourning, the big questions in the mouth of Lagosians and indeed Nigerians at large, are what value does government place on human life? And what role does the Lagos State Government play in ensuring that incidents of this nature are averted in the state?
Nigerians are becoming used to reports of building collapse in areas like Idumota, Isale Eko, Lagos Island and other densely populated areas where old and dilapidated structures can no longer bear the weight placed on them.
Many Nigerians are now familiar with the messages from government quarters, usually sent to console the families of the people who die in collapsed buildings. These messages also come with ‘empty and ejaculatory promises’ of going after those responsible for such acts of manslaughter, especially the regulatory bodies, who connive with the owners of those illegal structures through bribery, to allow the buildings.
The Ita-Faaji building collapse
On Wednesday March 13, 2019, a three-storey residential building, located at No 14, Massey Street, Opposite Oja, Ita-Faaji, housing a primary school on its pent house, caved in at about 10am in the morning trapping about 120 pupils under the rubble.
The collapsed property was a residential building but part of it was converted to a school.
Official reports have it that the house in question was an old building, which was not technically fit to house a school; but was actually housing an ‘illegal school’ on the third floor. At the end of the rescue operation, it was said that about 40 persons were brought out alive with several degrees of injuries such as broken legs, broken hands and loss of consciousness, while 18 others were reported dead.
Governor Ambode said at the scene of the mishap that a lot of integrity tests were being carried out on buildings in the Lagos Island neighborhood, which informed marking several of the buildings for demolition, a development that has met with resistance from landlords.
Expectedly, Ambode vowed to ensure that those found to have compromised integrity and official duty, leading to the building collapse and concomitant loss of human lives are punished in accordance with relevant laws of Lagos State.
BDSUNDAY understands that few months before the incident, the house was marked for demolition by officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), but several months down the line, the agency never carried out the demolition.
This, observers attributed to corruption and negligence on the part of government and the owners of the property.
According to experts, bad designs, faulty construction, corruption, negligence, foundation failure, extraordinary loads, unexpected failure modes or a combination of these factors, are the major reasons buildings suddenly collapse. These factors can be summed into human error and negligence, which according to a preliminary report have been blamed for the Ita-Faaji incident.
Pundits believed that Ambode’s action of reading the riot act after visiting the scene of the incident and threatening to punish those found guilty in accordance with relevant laws of the state was expected. But, the big question is how many of such people have been punished or brought to book in the past? Last Wednesday’s building collapse was not the first of such incident in the state in recent times.
Similar incidents of collapsed buildings in Lagos
Recall that on 12 September 2014, it was reported that a guesthouse owned by a popular Nigerian church, located at Ikotun-Egbe, a Lagos suburb, collapsed and killed about 116 people. The vast majority of casualties were foreigners.
After that incident, the state government, which claimed that the church did not get approval before constructing the building, vowed to punish anybody found to have compromised integrity and quality, even as it vowed to be tougher with home builders in Lagos.
Five years down the line, Lagosians are yet to hear the end of this case with regard to who has been punished for that national tragedy which was taken to court at that time.
Similarly, two years after that incident, another of such incident occurred in the upmarket area of Lagos Island, killing at least 34 people, while 13 were rescued alive according to official reports.
In the last three years, cases of building collapse have been rampant in Lagos State with heavy casualty figures.
Government’s action
Two days after the building on Ita-Faaji area of Lagos Island collapsed, the Lagos State Government directed the Lagos State Building Control Agency to demolish all the illegal structures in that area of Lagos.
“Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has given a directive to go ahead and remove over 80 structures in Lagos Island before the end of the month and we are doing them in phases and today (Friday), we are removing three and I assure you that life would be better for Lagosians,” said Omotayo Fakolujo, acting general manager of the State Building Control Agency.
According to him, there are lots of legal tussles that relating to demolition. “I can say that the owners and tenants are recalcitrant, in as much as we try to evict them, they continue to evade arrest. For this one, we just had a clearance from the court last week we are moving to Smith, Palm Church and Adeniji Adele streets where we have marked over 20 structures for demolition.”
Recommendations
Much as Lagosians appreciate the efforts of Governor Ambode in securing life and property in Lagos, the Wednesday March 13, 2019 incident and several other buildings that have collapsed in Lagos in times past, could have been averted, if only the government through its regulatory bodies, puts an end to paying lip service to doing the right thing.
It is sad that a school was actually approved on the third floor of such illegal structure and people are yet to be arrested in the State Ministry of Education for granting approval and sanctioning the existence of such a school.
Therefore, government should muster enough will to go after those in the ministry of education and the Lagos State Building Control Agency that refused to do the needful and allow the existence of both the building and location of school on the collapsed Ita-Faaji.
There is need for government to reduce emphasis on revenue generation but pay more attention to securing lives and property as it has been discovered over time that people go to the Ministry of Urban Planning to pay money and obtain building approval without the officials of the ministry going to the site to ensure that the buildings adhere to specification.
Government needs to prevent the use of inadequate or poor design details, poor supervision and the use of sub-standard materials.
AMAKA AMAKA-EWUZIE
