No fresh building collapse in Lagos Island, LASBCA Insists
Chiemelie Ezeobi and Sunday Ehigiator
Barely five days after the building collapse at Itafaji, Lagos Island claimed 20 lives with 45 still recuperating in the hospital, another building caved in yesterday within the same suburb, leaving some people injured.
But the General Manager of Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Mr. Lekan Shodeinde, has insisted that there was no fresh building collapse in the state.
THISDAY gathered that the building located at No. 57 Egerton Square, Oke Arin area of Lagos Island, was already marked for demolition and the exercise was ongoing when it caved in without warning and buried the demolishers.
However, Shodeinde yester-day insisted that there was no fresh building collapse in the state.
According to a statement by Mrs. Titi Ajirotutu of the Public Affairs Unit if LASBCA, Shodeinde said that a three-floor structure was marked as distressed and was undergoing demolition as at press time.
He said the building in question was within a built-up area flanked by other adjoining structures at the rear, adding that the demolition of the distressed building became necessary in order to avert another disaster.
According to him, the present administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode will leave no stone unturned to sanitize the building construction industry in the State by removing all the distressed, illegal structures and buildings prone to collapse as well as those that were not in conformity with the state Building Laws.
He appealed to Lagosians to cooperate with the State Government by moving out of all buildings marked as distressed and also stay away from demolition sites.
