Press Releases

Fashola Urges Lagosians To Demolish Defective Buildings

Mar 26, 2009 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Thursday visited the collapsed four-storey building on Oderinde Street, Idi-araba, urging Lagos residents to demolish any building showing any signs of stress or defect.

Governor Fashola, who came down hard on the critics of the State’s Town Planning laws, declared that politics should not come in the way of safety of lives and property of the people.

Addressing some residents and relatives of victims of the disaster, the visibly shaken Governor declared, “We continue to insist, even though some very dangerous people continue to say we are very uncaring. I wish that they were here now to come and give us back the lives we have lost. When we insist that people must comply with the law, some people who want to gamble with peoples’ lives on the political alter say that we don’t have a human face. Where is their own human face now? Who can give back life to the dead bodies?” he lamented.

Governor Fashola told the gathering, “I continue to tell property owners in Lagos State, buildings have a lifespan. If your building is showing any signs of crack, write to us we will give you permit, demolish it and rebuild. Buildings are meant to protect us not to destroy our lives. I see that people have lost everything here, I see mangled properties. Bodies have been lost. This is avoidable if we play by the rules”.

Describing the death of the victims as avoidable, Governor Fashola further said, “We should, as leaders in this State, as leaders in this country, stop gambling with peoples’ lives, adding that it is important to take into consideration when constructing a building, that Lagos lies below sea level with most of its land as swamp.

“And, therefore, we insist that before you build, you must do a soil test. It is from the result of the soil test that you know the type of foundation you need to put up a two or three storey building. This is all we ask and this how it is done everywhere, because if we don’t do it we will continue to have this kind of avoidable lose of lives and properties”, the Governor said.

He lamented, “People have lost all their lives’ properties. This is all so tragic. I continue to appeal, if we all work together, this is not difficult”, adding that all over the world it the practice is to do soil test before erecting a building. He said if in some countries of the world, some buildings last for as long as 100 years, then there is something lacking in our own practice here.

The Governor who was told that 19 people died in the incident while 56 other were rescued with various degrees of injuries, consoled the relatives of victims of the disaster praying that God would give them succour in their moment of sorrow.

He directed the Ministry of health to ensure that the process of issuing death certificates are hastened to ensure the release of the dead bodies to their relatives for proper burial.

The four-storey building collapsed on Tuesday trapping many of the residents ten of whom were officially confirmed dead as at Thursday afternoon while excavation work was still on to search for more bodies.