Gov. Fashola Orders Demolition of Buildings - About 130 Buildings Collapsed in 5yrs!

Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, on Monday, disclosed that he had approved fresh demolition of buildings, just as it was revealed that 130 buildings collapsed in five years in the state.

He made this known when he received the report of the Tribunal of Enquiry on cases of collapsed buildings in the state, even as he called for the revocation of engineers in charge of collapsed buildings.

A statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Hakeem Bello, quoted the governor as also saying that officials of the Ministry of Physical Planning had commenced weekend official duties, designed to tackle those who use the weekend to engage in sub-standard construction and distortion of original construction plans.

The governor, who spoke at the Government House, further said that compensation had been approved and paid some victims of collapsed buildings in the state.

The Tribunal, headed by Architect Abimbola Ajayi, was set up to unravel the reasons behind past collapses in order to avoid future ones.


Receiving the report, which is in eight volumes from the chairperson, Governor Fashola added that once those in the industry knew that the people were serious and everybody acted as the next person’s policeman, then things would fall into shape.

He assured the recommendations of the panel would be implemented and a white paper accordingly issued while taking steps to ensure that some of the things that had happened in the past did not repeat themselves again.

“Unfortunately in one way or the other whether by natural causes or not, lives are lost just in the way life is made every day but it is our job here to ensure that no life is lost when the circumstances are avoidable. For me, human life is very important, it is the most important gift that we have and everything that we can do must be done to jealously protect it, nurture it to its fullest capacity and therefore when people do not die of old age or illnesses that sciences can treat, but die because people have cut corners, they die buried in what should be a home then we are concerned.


“And we will continue to ask questions and that is why we have asked this Tribunal questions. We hope that some of the answers and most of them will help us in finding answers to some of what went wrong and what we should not do again and what we should do more of,” he added.

The governor also sought to know why buildings were not lasting up to 100 years, asking: “What did we do wrong then when we were building? Did we take full view of the terrain of Lagos Islands and swamps, largely reclaimed? Did we put the right foundation of piles in or did we use the wrong foundations for much more solid ground?”