The Lagos State Government has marked more than 20
houses for demolition at Jakande Estate, Oke-Afa, near Isolo, Lagos
following the death of two sisters when a two-storey building collapsed
in the estate on Wednesday.
When
we visited the estate this morning, officials of the Lagos State
Building Control Agency, LSBCA, were busy marking the defective
buildings in the estate for demolition.
Two sisters, Bukky and
Toyin Coker, were killed and their mother, Mrs. Coker, seriously injured
when their house in the estate collapsed at midnight.
Officials of
LSBCA claimed that most of the buildings at the estate were defective
and the residents warned to move away from the danger zone but they
failed to heed the warning.
An official of LSBCA who spoke with
us on condition of anonymity this morning said government has ordered
them to mark all defective buildings in the estate for demolition.
A resident of the estate, Mrs. Joy Oduah noted that the contractors who handled the buildings did a poor job.
The marking of the houses for demolition, we gathered, has thrown landlords and tenants in the estate into panic.
Some
of the residents who spoke to our correspondents said not all the
buildings marked for demolition were defective, adding that some of them
were marked in order to extort money from the landlords.
It was also gathered that most of the houses in the estate were let out by the landlords who live elsewhere.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, General Manager, Lagos State Emergency
Management Agency (LASEMA), said that occupants of a two-storey building
that collapsed in Lagos on Wednesday had ignored government‘s safety
warnings.
The building, Block M20, Jakande Estate, at Church Street,
Oke-Afa, Isolo, Lagos, collapsed shortly after midnight, killing two
sisters.
Oke-Osanyintolu, who made the disclosure in an interview
with NAN in Lagos, said that the state government had conducted series
of structural tests on the building.
He explained that occupants had
been repeatedly informed of its distressed state and the dangers in
their continued habitation of the building.
“This is the kind of
disasters we have always tried to avoid , but unfortunately, some
residents are not just co-operating with the state government at the
expense of their safety.
“The results of the series of structural
tests we conducted on the collapsed building showed that the structure
was weak and not fit for habitation.
“We had repeatedly warned the occupants of the dangers and asked them to leave but unfortunately, they ignored these warnings.
“This disaster is preventable. It would not have happened this way if the occupants had complied,” he said.
Oke-Osanyintolu
said some of the buildings that collapsed in the metropolis were due to
residents’ defiance to government safety warnings.
He urged residents to subject their buildings to routine structural tests by government to ascertain their state of habitation.
“We
cannot open our eyes and allow all of these to go on. Henceforth, we
will begin strict enforcement of evacuation order on distressed
buildings.
“We are not going to wait for occupants to leave
because some will not just leave. We are concerned with the safety of
lives and properties,” he said.
The General Manager said emergency
response officials had been mobilised to the site of the incident to
ensure safe evacuation of all occupants.
Oke-Osanyintolu said that building would be demolished to avert further disasters.
Meanwhile
the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has advised the Lagos
State Government to conduct comprehensive assessment of buildings in all
its housing estates. Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye, the South-West Zonal
Information Officer of the agency, gave the advice in an interview with
NAN on Wednesday in Lagos.
He gave the advice at the collapsed
building that killed two sisters in Isolo, noting that the structure was
erected during the tenure of Alhaji Lateef Jakande as the governor of
Lagos State between 1979 and 1983. He said that the assessment was
necessary to determine the suitability of the buildings for continued
habitation.
NAN reports that many of the two-storey buildings,
constructed about 30 years ago, have become dilapidated, with cracks on
their walls.
According to Farinloye, the Lagos State Ministry of
Housing will assess the houses to determine their suitability to serve
as residential buildings.
“We have advised residents to immediately evacuate the buildings, to avoid further loss of lives.
“The
Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) has taken over the
site of the collapsed building for proper assessment,” he said.
Farinloye
advised residents of the other buildings to cooperate with appropriate
government agencies, scheduled to conduct the assessment, in order to
safeguard lives and properties.
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