Building collapse: Lagos begins demolition of over 150 marked houses

The Lagos State Building Control Agency (LABSCA) yesterday began the demolition of defective buildings on the Lagos Island.

Men of the agency’s task force pulled down a three-storey building on 60A, Freeman Street, Epetedo area.

The demolition exercise is not unconnected with the Wednesday incident around the same area, where a four-storey building collapsed, killing over 10 people and leaving scores injured.

LABSCA official, Mr. Omotayo Fakolujo, told The Nation that the property owner had been served several notices dating back to 2013 before the demolition.

He said that over 150 houses on the Lagos Island have been identified for demolition.

“On the Lagos Island, we have over 150 houses marked for demolition. We have removed over 30 in the last one year and we are going to be removing them in phase. What we are trying to do is to remove occupants from all these structures that have been marked so that no life is lost in Lagos. For now on Lagos Island alone, we have a clear court case approval of over 80 cases and 80 structures that are ready for removal and we will do it in phases systematically from today (yesterday) so that life will be comfortable for Lagosisns. We will remove three today on Lagos Island. And for the houses that are still occupied, we are going to evict the occupants of the structures because their lives are more important to us.

“On our mode of demolishing, these structures are so close by; we have to remove them systematically, manually so that we can ensure that there is safety. The exercise is not prompted by the recent collapsed building. Before this incident, we had removed over 10 structures within Ajeromi Ifemodun and Apapa within the Ijora axis,” he said.

Contrary to previous experiences, residents and passers-by on Freeman Street, Epetedo, Lagos, praised the officials for the demolition exercise.