Lagos to demolish ‘structurally defective’ buildings

The Lagos State Government is to demolish all structurally defective buildings as soon as it concludes investigations on them.

The state Commissioner for Special Duties, Dr. Wale Ahmed, gave the assurance while inspecting a three-storey building that collapsed on Thursday morning on Otto Street, Ebute Meta.

He said the government was doing everything possible to avoid more building collapse.

“Every building marked for demolition will be pulled down as soon as the agencies assigned to work on them conclude their investigations.

Ahmed expressed hope that building collapse would soon be a thing of the past in Lagos State.

He said the state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, had constituted a committee to look into building collapse in the state and make recommendations.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that at least seven persons died when the three-storey building collapsed on Thursday morning.

A motorcycle seller, who occupied the ground floor of the building, Mr. Chukwudi Ezeobi, told NAN that about 200 Honda motorcycles valued at N20 million was in his shop before the incident.

Another motorcycle seller, Mr. Ambrose Aneke, said that he had about 100 cartons of motorcycle spare parts valued at about N3 million in the building.

Also speaking to NAN, the Chairman, Mainland Local Government Area, Mr. Oladele Adekanye, said the council would do its best to assist in checking collapse of buildings.