Ikoyi building collapse: Consortium of professionals to scrutinise high-rise buildings

Lagos State government has accepted the recommendation that an audit exercise by an independent consortium of professionals should scrutinise all high-rise buildings in the state.

Besides, it also accepted that there should be training for all officials involved in the building approval section, with more hands recruited to assist agencies that are short staffed.

These and others were contained in a White Paper prepared by the Lagos State government on the report submitted to it by the panel that probed the collapsed 21-storey building in Ikoyi, Lagos, in November 2021.

The White Paper was released barely three and a half months after the 21-storey building collapsed on Gerrard Road in Ikoyi and over one month that the probe panel submitted its report. It recommended the prosecution of Fourscore Homes and trial of indicted civil servants, adding that the company will face criminal prosecution.

For failing structural test, the two 15-storey buildings have also been approved for demolition through controlled demolition technique, having been recommended for such by the tribunal and accepted by the state government. The White Paper further recommended the “evacuation of all occupants within a 45-metre radius from the extreme boundaries of the blocks in the interest of public safety.”

Also recommended to face administrative disciplinary panel are government of- ficials involved in granting approval to the developer in 2019.

Twenty-six out of the 28 recommendations contained in the report were accepted by the government.

The White Paper states: “The developer, having been negligent, is to forfeit the project site to the state government, in accordance with Section 25(4) of the revised LABSCA regulation 2019.

All the various participants, including civil/public servants, found culpable are to face disciplinary actions and prosecution, where applicable.

“This included all those that were involved in the 2019 approval of the collapsed building. The civil servants are to first face the personnel management board, in line with the public service rules. The disciplinary process is to be set up immediately and concluded with 14 days.

“Apart from civil servants, some professionals have also been referred to the professional bodies for disciplinary actions. The list here included engineers, town planners, and architects; while some companies have also been referred to the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria for disciplinary actions for their roles in the collapsed building. Besides this, some indicted companies such as the Urban Primer have also been blacklisted for the roles played in the tragedy.”

The document chided three town planners (civil servants) who were said to have lied on oath. According to the report, the town planners were said to have authored a report using a consultancy firm’s name and claiming it was the firm that signed the papers for the collapsed building – all done without the knowledge of the firm’s owners.

Meanwhile, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has revealed that the collapsed 21-storey high-rise building had poor workmanship.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that two engineers and staff of SON, Mr Kareem Adisa and Mr Ibrahim Aliyu, said this while testifying on Thursday at an Ikeja Coroner’s Court.

They were led in evidence by Mr Yusuf Lawan, the counsel for SON. The witnesses revealed that following the collapse of the building, SON’s special task force, led by the chairman, Mr Enebi Shuabu, immediately swung into action.

They said members of the taskforce went to the site and collected samples for laboratory testing and analysis, adding that the report showed that the workmanship on the site and method of reinforcement were poor.

“The coarse aggregate was so few and not well supervised. The mix proportions of the cement, sand and gravel were not correctly done. If I am to give an example in lay man’s language, if he was supposed to use five caps he used three caps. If there was adequate supervision, it could have been corrected,” he said.

Adisa, however, noted that most of the building materials conformed to standards when they were tested in the laboratory.

In his testimony at the court, a pathologist, Dr Sokunle Soyemi, revealed that five deceased victims of the building are yet to be identified. Soyemi, who is the acting Chief Medical Examiner of Lagos State, while testifying at an coroner’s court on Thursday, said there were 50 victims of the collapsed building (47 male and three female); 45 have so far been identified and their ages range from 18 to 56 years. Soyemi said autopsies on the bodies commenced on November 4, 2021 and lasted for 13 days.

Revealing the causes of death, he said, “so far we have identified 45 bodies out of 50. The autopsies revealed that 40 deceased had multiple injuries as cause of death; six had injuries to the head alone and died, while one had a bilateral fracture of the femur.”

The pathologist said the remains were put in 53 body bags because an additional three body bags had contained body parts of the deceased victims.

On the physical state of the corpses, the pathologist said the bodies could not be visually identified and samples had to be taken from the bodies for testing at the Lagos State DNA and Forensic Centre.

“After about a month, we started receiving results from the lab. As we were receiving the results we were also releasing the bodies to families and up till now, we are still releasing bodies.

“At present, of the 45 identified bodies, 42 have been released to family members while the remaining three have not been collected by family members,” he said. (Nigerian Tribune)