Coroner’s Inquest: ‘All Victims Died Before Help Came’, LASEMA DG

All evidence points to the fact that all victims of the collapsed building, had died before the rescue operation began. This was part of the submission of the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency LASEMA, Dr. Oluwafemi Damilola Oke-Osayintolu at the Coroner’s Inquest into the collapsed building on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, at Ikeja court premises on Thursday, January 27, 2022.

At the proceeding, Dr. Oluwafemi Damilola Oke-Osayintolu, who gave a vivid account of how the rescue operations was carried out by Responders, said that none of the victims of the collapsed building died during the rescue operations, but evidence showed that they were all dead before the rescue operations commenced.

It would be recalled that a 21-storey high-rise building located at Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos collapsed on the November 1, 2021, killing 42 people.

While being led in his evidence-in-chief by the Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, A.S Odugbemi at the Coroner’s Inquest presided over by Chief Magistrate Oyetade Alexander Komolafe, the LASEMA MD, explained that the rescue operation was carried out by both professionals and non-professionals alike, assisted by their equipment which is up to the standard used world wide.

He said the Agency was confronted with what he described as, a classical national emergency. He noted that the rescue team he directed and gave instructions to as the Incident Commander mandated by the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, moved into the incident area following a primary assessment, partitioning the ‘building’ into Quadrums 1 to 4, and employing Heavy and Life Duty equipment.

He also said the use of drone and Delsa equipment for detection of life, enabled both primary and secondary emergency Responders to determine that there was no life in the debris before work commenced.

Responding to a question by Mr Ola Adeosun representing Prowess Engineering Ltd, whether the Agency in the course of the rescue operation led to the death of some persons underground, the LASEMA Boss responded thus: “My Lord, with my medical background, I have attended to a lot of emergencies within State and Federal, I would say no”.

Speaking about what he called theatre field or the emergency field, Dr Oke-Osayintolu said, “Where we put the excavator is the first quadrum. We use the Delsa to detect if there is somebody that is alive, and I said this type of collapse building, it’s unique itself”.
“When it pile on one another there won’t be air going in, it will compress the victim and the way our response was operated we divided the place into quadrums.

“We used a Delsa and drone, I can say that that the probability is close to zero.”

Continuing the cross-examination, Mr Adeosun asked, “Are you telling this court that before moving your equipment, you must have confirmed that there is no person alive?

The witness replied during the proceeding,“100 per cent yes, My Lord”, he insisted.
“Thee was nobody that died in the course of our intervention, to the best of my knowledge.”

#upjudicialsalaries
‘We need to significantly improve the remuneration of Judges and Magistrates. Ther’s no reason why the salaries of Judges, cannot be benchmarked against that of Senators and Members of House of Representatives.’ -Professor Yemi Osinbajo GCON, SAN, Professor of Law, Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria