Last Wednesday’s collapse of a six-storey building at Maryland, Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, did not come as a surprise. It was never the first. If anything, building collapse has become, perhaps, the most challenging debacle the state government has continued to search for solution.
In the last couple of years, dozens of lives and properties estimated at billons of naira had been lost, with scores of residents and businesses thrown into unexpected hardships, as hardly do three months roll by without one or two such cases being recorded in the state.
The latest of this disaster followed in the same manner other buildings before it also caved in, except that this time, lives were not lost, perhaps, because it was not a residential building and the occupants, all adults hurried out before the house finally came down.
To many residents of the state, what is most appalling is the frequency of the disaster, despite measures by state government to check against it. One of the measures has been the withdrawal of Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) issued owner or developer of a collapsed building and the take-over of the affected property by the government.
This measure among other sanctions is meant to discourage the use of sub-standard materials in building construction. A greater percentage of cases recorded in the state has been linked to the use of inferior materials, engagement of non professionals and poor supervision, all of which are weaved around greed on the part of developers who would not go for quality materials considered more expensive.
Although the relevant state agencies were by Friday yet to make a categorical statement regarding the cause of the latest collapse in Maryland, occupants of the building hold the view that it has to do with the quality of materials used.
Abayomi Jaiyeoba, registrar, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), which occupied two floors in the collapsed building, speaking with journalists at the site on Thursday, said there had been cracks on the walls of the building to which the attention of the landlord was drawn weeks before the eventual collapse.
According to the registrar, who put the institute’s losses at over N20 million, the cracks were pointer to the fact that something fundamental was wrong with the foundation, the materials and the personnel engaged in the building process.
“At about 3pm on Wednesday, we were holding a meeting on the fourth floor when the building trembled. But we failed to respond, five minutes later we heard another quaking and when we looked outside our floor we saw other occupants running out.
“When I discovered this, I ordered my staff to quickly move out of the building and when we got out, we all assembled 30 metres away from the building. And then the building started giving way.”
On whether the landlord was ever notified on the situation of the building, Jaiyeoba said “when we noticed that there were cracks on the walls, we called the attention of the landlord, one Alhaji Raji who told us that he was out of the country. And eventually, he came to inspect the building about a week ago. When he saw the cracks, he promised that he would contact his engineer. That was about two days ago. Although, the engineer has not commenced the rehabilitation process on the building before it caved in on Wednesday.”
Juliet Okere, a staff of Ambassador Express, which occupied the first floor, also lamented there had been cracks all over the building before the collapse. “Whenever it rains, the tiles on the floors will fall off while the cements on the columns will begin to give way,” Okere said.
But as the search for a solution to the fatalities arising out of incidence of building collapse continues, the state government says it is adopting new measures to stem the tide. Olutoyin Ayinde, commissioner for physical planning, says aside taking-over collapsed property, government is set to declare owners or developers of collapsed buildings wanted as well as publish their pictures and bio data in the media, where they failed to submit themselves for arrest.
Government, he states, is also establishing a new body to be known as Building Control Authority, which responsibility will be to check and ensure that mixing of sand, concrete, cements and the quality of iron rod, conform to acceptable standards. The authority will also certify various categories of personnel including the artisans, to ensure that they have the prerequisite and qualification needed to engage in building construction.
This, according to Ayinde, is because there is a correlation between building collapse, the personnel and the quality of materials used in the construction work.
“In view of the avoidable fatalities arising out of the incidence of collapse of buildings in recent times, and the observed breach of physical planning law and regulations with impunity by members of the public, the Lagos State government wishes to reiterate its resolve to apply the weight of the law to arrest this disturbing situation,” Ayinde states.