Lagos State government is taking the bull by the horn, as it is set to demolish identified structurally defective buildings in different parts of the state, especially Lagos Island.
Nurudeen Sodeinde, the acting General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), who confirmed this to BusinessDay in interview, said the agency before now had identified and earmarked several of such buildings in the state.
Although Sodeinde said the demolition exercise started long before now, the latest building collapse at 63, Massey Street, Ita Faji, Lagos Island, in which about 18 people including school children died, and 45 others injured, was spurring the renewed effort by the government to avert further loss of lives in the event of any reoccurrence.
According to the LASBCA boss, government plans to take the exercise gradually.
He said the exercise would commence with the first 20 buildings before moving to others and would depend on the resources and logistics available to the agency.
“It is not really about the number of buildings to be demolished at a time, but the reason behind the exercise, which is to avert further loss of lives in the event of those identified defective buildings collapsing,” said Sodeinde.
Recall that over 200 defective buildings had earlier been identified standing precariously in different parts of Lagos and posing danger to their occupants.
However, efforts at demolishing such buildings have not been quite successful, as owners of their have been uncooperative with the government.
The government had always expected the landlords of such buildings to bear the costs of the demolition of their buildings.
