Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos has sought the demolition of 20 buildings in Banana Island, Ikoyi area of the state.
The governor gave this order on Saturday, April 22, 2023, during a visit to the site of the recent building collapse on First Avenue in Banana Island.
While accusing some agencies of the federal government of being culpable in the incidents of building collapse on the highbrow Island, Sanwo-Olu described as reckless the way and manner officials of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), the promoters of the estate, issued permission to sand fill the Lagos Lagoon without regard to the topography of the area.
He stated that the site of the collapsed building was not originally part of the island’s plan.
“We are at the back of the land that is abutting. You can see that the original line for Banana Island is not even here. It is way in front and you can see that there are several extensions granted by both the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and NIWA. These are the two federal agencies that have been culpable for those extensions. They have done these extensions without our knowledge.
“We have responsibility for building approval. All of the four buildings at the back never got our approval. This is an illegality that is real and that is why we are going around the properties.
“The excuse that they don’t have access is not acceptable. It is total recklessness. All the developers and the culpable officers will be sanctioned.
“But what we are doing now is – we have set up an external committee who are given two weeks to independently ascertain what has gone wrong here and they should finish the work towards the end of next week. This will further strengthen our hands to be able to come up with a robust work plan that we can enforce going forward.
“It is heartbreaking each time we have to go through this and it shows how irresponsible both the developers, some of our citizens that just want to make quick money, and of course our officers, who are not alive to their responsibility.
“We have had to change staff here and there so that we can bring forward robust and very strong monitoring offices, but we are still short of it, I must say. We need to do what we have to do to keep the lives of our citizens safe at all times,” he explained.
