Nigeria was visited with twin tragedies this week, tragedies that ought not to have happened if our government, or what we pretend to be government, has been more alive to its responsibilities.
On Wednesday, 13th March, 2019 a 3-storey building collapsed in Lagos Island. At least 14 persons, children and teachers have been confirmed dead so far.
On 15th March, just two days later, another 3- storey building collapsed in Ibadan, perhaps under construction. The casualty rate in this new tragedy is yet to be determined.
I want to comment briefly about the Lagos tragedy since the Ibadan own is still unravelling.
By the grace of God I am a Civil/ Structural engineer who has practised for many years with a professional licence of 23 years. I know something about structures and why structures fail.
Not just that.
I was a Secretary of Nigerian Society of Engineers ( Ikeja Branch) between 2006/2007 and Chairman of its Failure Investigation Committee.
So I know something about failures of structures and the usual causes of engineering failures in Nigeria, especially Lagos.
I have said this before in several fora, buildings don’t just fail by accident or fate or because a supernatural or metaphysical power wants it. They fail because someone, somewhere fails to do what he should have done or does what he shouldn’t have done.
The Lagos building in question is a multipurpose building: residential, commercial and school. We are told that the first floor is commercial and the ground floor is residential and a second floor for Nursery children with a pent house on top for crèche.
That is the functionality of the building. Now can’t you see something is wrong here? What happened to Town Planning Regulations?
Then the history of the building? We are told that the building has been built for the past 50 or more years! It is an old building.
Yet a nursery school with about 100 children is being constructed on an old building without revisiting the foundation or examining the structural integrity or adequacy of the building for the proposed task. Sorry, is there a government in this nation?
So all the time this was been done no official or agency of regulatory or approving authority saw it? Where was LASBCA ( the Lagos State Building Control Agency), LASMTL ( Lagos State Materials Testing Lab..), Lagos Island Council Authority, Town Planning Authority… None of these officials saw this sacrilege going on, this aberration in the realm of engineering. Until tragedy struck.
The lame excuse by the Manager of LASBCA in the Vanguard newspaper of March 14, is very annoying, if not outrightly insulting. If you marked the building for demolition because you confirmed it was structurally unsound and defective, what were you doing for 3 months thereafter without doing anything until your inaction has now resulted into tragedy claiming lives?
I have a feeling now that either some of the people manning Lagos state agencies are incompetent or they are simply ignorant. Or outrightly mischievous.
It was the same story during the Synagogue collapse claiming up to 114 lives some years ago.
A building approved for 4- storey was being raised to 6- floor, yet no government officials was there to stop the contravention until lives were lost. This is how they run government here.
Any engineer properly instructed, even a pupil engineer in the practice knows that “places of public assembly ” like schools, churches, stadium, mosques, assembly hall have special provisions for their design.
It is curious to me that an agency of government in the 21st century will not give the right attention to supervision or regulations to a place where hundreds of people will congregate.
Later they will tell us: “Lagos is working”. Sure, the whole world can now see that it is really ‘working’. Politicians will always be politicians. At the end of the day they will set up a probe panel appointed by their own, of their own cronies that will blame only the developer and exonerate government and its officials.
That is Nigeria for you.
They will visit hospital and commiserate and promise to pay hospital bills and even shed corrocodile tears rather than remove the cause of the tragedy by putting appropriate policy in place and sacking incompetent officials. And an ignorant and unthinking population, literate but uneducated, will cheer the large- heartedness of government.
So you see, this tragedy will not go away soon. There will still be more collapses in the days ahead. Because we refuse to do the needful.
The Laws of Engineering do not respect anyone. Small or great, rich or poor, big or weak, you must obey them or you will pay dearly for it. It does not recognize Holy Land or holy places; it knows no pastor or imams or bank executive. They are laws and all must bow before them. That was why a bridge collapsed the other day in Saudi Arabia killing hundreds of people, that is why churches and mosques collapse and even bank buildings. One day Nigerians will learn this that with engineering you can’t cut corners. It does not recognize your ‘Nigerian factor’, it recognizes only “Engineering factors’ and sound principles built on the wisdom and tabulated knowledge and accumulated data of the Ages. That is why the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, one of the Seven wonders of the Ancient world is still standing without any crack and without settlement after more than 4000 years. While Nigerian buildings still under construction and fresh are collapsing.
Who did this to us? Where did we miss the road? What is our sin, dear Lord?
At the Lagos Vision Zero Conference organized by Lagos State Government last year where I was an invited speaker, I presented a paper on RECENT TRENDS IN BUILDING COLLAPSE IN LAGOS STATE.
Looking at the 40- year data of building collapses in Lagos state certain facts and trends become discernible which I highlighted in that paper and made recommendations to government on how to completely end this scourge or solve the problem. Now it is clear someone didn’t even read the paper.
One of the trends is that “building collapses increase around the period when a transition is about to take place from one government to another.” It may seem superstitious but it is true and I based my study on 40- year data and graphs, so the study is scientific with empirical data. And recommendations were made to solve this problem, among others.
After the presentation, a woman, a director of Federal Ministry who was a participant walked up to me and said, “Oga, of all who spoke today you are the only one who told the truth. ”
We know the truth. We can stop these tragedies if we want. Government has all the recommendations and studies and papers from experts and they are gathering dust in the shelf or have been thrown away, waiting for another tragedy.
It is indeed sad.
Sometimes I remember what my professor at the University of ILORIN once told us in the 1980’s : “Nigeria is not yet in the 20th century, it is still in the 16th century but it has had a peep into the twentieth century.” Professor Olufeagba – B.J. to us his admirers. Sometimes I remember that statement and I ask could this man have been right?
The Vanguard newspaper added another dimension. It quoted a resident of the area who confirmed that the building was indeed bad structurally. However, he said, whenever the building officials came for inspection and marked the building for demolition, the owner would bribe them sometimes with 50, or 150,000 naira and they too would depart. The owner would then repaint the building to erase the mark of demolition.
Now what is the result? All the bribing was only postponing the evil day that was sure to come. You can’t escape the laws of engineering: if you don’t address it, it will catch up with you violently, someday and address you.
The proprietor of the school died too in the tragedy. It is sad.
Sadder still are the children, innocent children who have been robbed and cheated in life for what they know nothing about.
I express my sincere condolence to all these families.
Nigerians need to learn that you cannot escape realities. You can only postpone them. Surely, certainly, unfailingly actions will give birth to consequences, both good and bad.
Let us think.
© Moses Oludele Idowu ( March 17, 3, 2019)
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