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On Sunday 23rd April, Lagos State in southwestern Nigeria, recorded its fourth building collapse in four months, as it continues to rank top among states with incidents of a partial or full building collapse.
The Lagos State Government in a swift response on Sunday announced that the three-floor building still under construction on Ladipo Oluwole Street, Apapa area of the state had partially collapsed because the developers ignored several warnings to stop work.
A Deputy Director of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Mukaila Sanusi, said preliminary enquiries showed that the Agency had “issued a number of contravention notices, stop work and seal up orders which the developer ignored and carried on construction without any recourse, whatsoever, to the authorities”.
According to the official, the building had a Provisional Development Permit for two floors but construction was at third-floor roof level when the incident occurred.
The incident comes barely a week after a seven-storey building under construction collapsed on First Avenue, in the Banana Island area of Ikoyi, Lagos State, killing at least one.
In January, a one-storey building in Ikeja and an abandoned two-storey building on Olokodana Street, in Okokomaiko area of Lagos State also collapsed.
Building collapse which has now become a recurring phenomenon in the state, often resulting in the loss of lives and money, calls for urgent measures to address the spate.
Last year, 20 out of 62 building collapses recorded in the country, occurred in Lagos state and the immediate past President of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Eddy Atumonyogo, 23 states had incidents of a partial or full collapse of buildings.
“The guild still has a lot of work to do in persuading the various governments to collaborate with it in monitoring construction activities to ensure best practices as well as enlighten the investing public on the need to engage competent hands,” Atumonyogo said.
A Professional builder, Didi Onyiyeyone, told this newspaper that some of the main natural causes of building collapse are: building on the wrong soil, poor foundation, errors in structural design and non-adherence to specifications given by experts.
Others are the use of inferior and expired building materials, illegal conversion of existing structures and the proliferation of quacks in the industry.
“In Nigeria, it is illegal to commence construction works without approved drawings from the approving authorities.
“So, when developers bypass the appropriate bodies for approval or fail to comply with the dictates of the provisional development permit, the result is a shoddy, unvetted construction which can easily lead to building collapse,” he explained.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) notes that there are no laws in Nigeria making it compulsory for individuals or building developers to seek the services of certified professionals for building construction.
Consequently, professional bodies are unable to fulfill oversight functions, paving the way for unqualified or unskilled builders to oversee construction projects in the country.
LASBCA has a vision to ensure that buildings in Lagos State are designed, constructed and maintained to high standards of safety so as to avoid loss of lives and properties through its building regulatory system.
However, a former president of the Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON), Moses Ogunleye, said the agency does not have enough human resources to implement or enforce regulations vis- a- vis the volume of construction taking place in the state.
“The government should consider outsourcing some functions to reputable groups of professionals particularly that of monitoring and stage certification.
“This will among others speed up the issuance of Certificate of Fitness for Habitation and make the agency more efficient,” Ogunleye said.