LASBCA, Mrs. Abimbola Animashaun-Odunayo, in this
interview, speaks on the recent collapsed building
belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations,
SCOAN, the intricacies surrounding it, the next line of
action by the state government, among others.
Excerpts:
What actually went wrong with the SCOAN collapsed
building?
We need support from stakeholders and everyone.
Before now, we have been trying to curtail incidence of
collapse building until we had the latest one. I think the
problem of Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN,
brought the issue to the fore again. A lot of institutions
are too secretive they will not allow government officials
do their job properly. They believed that if you are not a
member, you cannot have access to their premises.
The site of the collapsed building at the Synagogue
Church, Ikotun-Egbe, Lagos.
Perhaps, what happened in Synagogue would not have
happened if they had allowed government officials do
their job. What Synagogue needs to know is that the
place is no more in their purview, everything now
belongs to government because that’s what the law
stipulates. Anytime our officials went there they were
prevented.
We could not gain access. I believe we need to sensitize
public institutions more, so that when an incident
happens they give way to rescue team and government
officials otherwise there will be issues like this in future.
We will not allow this anymore because the law has
given us the power to carry out our work effectively and
efficiently.
We have a task force, but on that fateful Friday, church
staff did not allow us to have access to the collapsed
site until when Rapid Response Squad, RRS, came to
our aid. People should allow us access to do our job
without fear. We have had issues where we were
beaten, harassed and molested in the course of doing
our duties, it should stop.
They fail to realize that the function of our agency is to
save lives, reduce incidence of building collapse to zero.
If people are not allowing us to do our job we cannot
save lives. I think we need to increase the number of
our taskforce men to enhance our work.
In the Synagogue incident, was your agency not carried
along in the building process and do they have
necessary approval?
We are still investigating. As I said earlier, we asked
them about the approval papers, but the representatives
of the church said the approval papers had been
burie4d in the rubble. So we are still waiting for them to
present the papers.
Yet, the fact is that the building in question was initially
a two-storey building before they added four raising it
to six. They could not have done that without having
competent people overseeing the building. If a raft
foundation was done to carry out two-storey building,
what did they do to fortify the strength of that
foundation to carry out six-storey building.? This is the
question we are asking them. Investigation is on-going;
until we finish the investigation, we won’t be able to do
much. We are just waiting for the result.
Lagos State Material Testing, current registered
institutions, NIA and other professionals are all involved
in the investigation. We will do the test to unravel the
cause of the collapse. Even though, they said it was due
to aircraft, we have a lot of houses that planes fly over.
everyday and they are not collapsing, so why this
particular one, we have to conduct a thorough
investigation.
On the seeming reluctance of the state government to
place immediate sanction as it is usually the case.
The state government is not reluctant. The fact is that
the place is not a plot of land, it is a compound. We
cannot go ahead and seal the whole place, the site is an
open space. We can’t seal for now, because the law
says when such an incident happens, the first thing to
do is to evacuate victims into safety after which we
have to cordon off the place and take charge. But
unfortunately that land has other plans.
And also because of the aircraft theory, we have to
investigate. Aviation experts are involved. We have to
sort things out before taking action. The Urban and
Regional Planning and Development Law, 2010 is there.
We need to follow the law. So we are leaving everything
till investigation is concluded which I believe will come
very soon. But, I can assure you appropriate action will
be taken.
Similar challenges in the course of duty.
We have several nasty cases. There are places where
our staff were beaten up and prevented from doing their
work sometimes by people using guns. We have cases
of barracks where buildings are in distressed and
dilapidated state. When we go for inspection, they
harass us and chase us away with guns. I think the
Federal Governments and the governor need to do
something about them fast before they start falling
down one after the other
Because as long as a building is within Lagos State, the
governor has the power, under the 2014 Urban and
Regional Planning and Development Law, to challenge
and enforce the law.
Particularly, the Federal Government should do
something now about the distressed buildings in police
barracks, most especially the ones in Ikeja, Iponri,
Ojuelegba, Obalende areas, all those barracks are not in
good condition. There is need for immediate intervention
to prevent avoidable loss of lives.
Like the ones in Iponri and Ikeja, we have compiled our
reports and sent to the authorities and I am sure the
state is working in collaboration with the FG because we
will not allow any loss of life because of negligence and
stubbornness.
We will not wait for the magnitude of destruction of lives
and property like that of SCOAN to happen in Lagos
before something is done.
We plan to reduce the incidence of building collapse in
this state to zero tolerance. Incidence of building
collapse will stop in the country if Nigerians imbibe the
culture of adhering to building laws, rules and
regulations.
We implore Lagosians to help us to help them, to save
lives because if you say it doesn’t concern you, you may
have relatives, family members friends in the collapsed
building. We don’t want anyone to lose his or her life
and that’s why we are around. After the SCOAN
incident, people have been coming forward to tell us of
other noticed distressed buildings.
How building standard is measured in the state.
Soil test must be determined. The soil on the Island is
not the same as the one on the Mainland. Depending on
the soil investigation, we can determine the kind of
foundation required. The foundation will always
determine the type of building whether bungalow,
duplex, high-rise, among others. LASBCA always gets
involved in any building from the soil investigation;
when you have this, we give you one or two options.
It is now left to you to make a choice. And when we
approve what the person intends to do, we follow-up
right from the foundation to the level of construction so
that we can do the stage inspection and certification to
ensure that the developer is building right, that is, to
make sure the building is up to the standard
specification and building code and according to the law
after which he can proceed to the necessary things: the
wall, the blocks and materials are of good quality. At
end of the day, we look at drainage, plumbing,
electricity, fire safety and then the roofing.
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